So, kiddies, I’m back… from outer space… I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face… Wait, what am I talking about? Is that a Gloria Gaynor reference? I mean, I will, in fact, survive, but for realsies? *shrugs* A’ight, moving on.
But yeah, like I stated, I’m back. In pog form. *shakes head* Ok, gots to get down to business. Too many random references for this early in a post. Anyways, so I’m sitting here in me house just chilling and thinking about how much I suck at writing on this thing. I’m not saying that my suckage is going to change (because let’s be honest here, these entries of mine are EPICALLY long, and I simply don’t have the time to rep everything up that I’d like to over here), but it’s defs time for another entry. Ergo, hope you enjoy, Amy! :-)
So I got back up to Minneapolis at about 3:35 pm on Sunday, January 20, in the year of our Lord 2009. I was to be moving into the famed 1018 house on University. Not going to lie, I was having some mixed emotions about this. I mean, I was going to be living with 11 other guys (with 2 other peeps in my room). That’s a lot dudes, f’real. I knew err’body was going to be chill because they’re all Campus Crusade for Christ’ers like myself. But nonetheless, lotta dude-age in one place. Especially considering that last year I had my own room for a fair amount of spring semester. Granted, I didn’t have my own cuarto in the slightest whilst in Spain because Luís NEVER left the room, but whatevs, I was never around, so it didn’t really matter. Meh.
But I have to say that things are pretty solid over here. I’m not around too much, so that’s good, but most importantly, the guys are all super-cool. I knew a few of them before moving in, so that was nice, but the guys I’ve met here are tight as well. My two roommates Weston and Eric are straight-money, so I must say, that it’s all hood, indeed.
It’s actually a bit surreal to think about the fact that I live at the 1018 house. I went to a party here my first weekend at the U freshmen year. Now I live here. That’s crazy. I know just how much of a stud all the guys that have lived here in the past are, and it’s pretty sweet to think that I’m carrying on some sort of tradition like that. I mean, not that I’m half the man that like Ben Cornish (my former Bible study leader), Jon Neal (another stud), and such are (because I’m not), but you know what I mean.
Speaking of first weekend freshmen year, just gotta throw something out there. “In the Presence” is a BS rule. Story time, my sister. So it was Friday, again my first weekend at the U. I’d met a couple guys at dinner that night randomly (Mark and Noah) and had gone out with them and another dude (James) that night to just wander around and chill. At the end of the night, they all said that they were going to go to some party in St. Paul to hang. I knew the vast majority of the people there would be drinking, so I decided to not rep this one up (plus I probs would’ve had to have slept there and such, and I didn’t so much want to roll like that on that night).
Thus, I went back into my hall just to chill and see what was up. Turns out there was a party in one of the rooms right across the hall from mine. I sat around in the hall talking to people for a bit before I finally decided to venture in. I mean, frigg, it was the first weekend (yeah, I’m repeating that a lot, but it’s probs necessary for ye to take the journey with me on this one… Ok, maybe not, but whatevs), and I wanted to meet some people.
I walk into the room and see just a bunch of people drinking. Obviously, I don’t partake in that (and still don’t), so I just kinda start talking to some random people. After like 10 minutes, two people decide to leave. So they open the door and head out. Of course at this friggin’ EXACT moment, two CA’s walk past. So they see what’s up, come in, and basically bust everyone. Yeah, so I got cited for 3 out of the 4 possible violations for this scenario: In the presence of alcohol, in the presence of containers, and something that I don’t really remember but was similar to like just “breaking regulations” or something stupid como así (How redundant are those 3 things? Like, if you break one, you’ve broken them all. Stupid stupid stuff). I didn’t go down for drinking, though, so that’s good. Odd, though, that I specifically chose not to go to a party where there’d be drinking only to get busted at a different party where there was drinking later on that same night..
But yeah, I had to have a meeting with the uber-resident hall advisor-fuhrer lady to explain my situation. As a punishment for being a freshman trying to meet people, I had to complete two online things that just talked about how drinking was bad and such. I then had to write like a 2 page paper on each. Hm… I wonder if I still have those saved on my comp. I am a pack-rat… *searches* Turns out that I don’t. I must’ve just deleted them out of anguish and such. Point is, that rule is complete crap. I mean, what if I were the guy making sure no one gets super-mega trashed and dies? Or perhaps I’m the designated driver? Seriously, what the frigg? I mean, I understand busting people for underage drinking, but c’mon, in the presence? *shakes head* And of course, one can only get like three of these violations before getting kicked out of the dorms. Thus, I had to watch myself pretty carefully for the rest of the year. First weekend. Heck, first day of the first weekend of the first year of school and I’ve already got the residential housing association on my back. Dumb.
Nonetheless, I found it moderately ironic that the next day I was at a Cru party where there was a sign right inside the door that said “NO ALCOHOL ALLOWED.” Of course, I joked with someone else there that someone should point a comma in there, so it would read “NO, ALCOHOL ALLOWED.” Oh grammar jokes, how funny you are! Point is, now I live here. And it’s pretty tight overall. Not gonna lie.
One thing about living in a house is that I wouldn’t have easy access to dorm food anymore. In theory, I was supposed to cook and such now. But I thought about this for a while before moving in. I was going to be busy as frigg with all the crazy crap that I do whilst up here, and I really didn’t think I’d have the time nor desire to prepare my own food on a consistent basis. So I ran the numbers on how much a residential meal plan actually cost. Turns out that it’s like $6.67 per meal. Not too friggin’ bad, I’d say. Couple that with the convenience factor of not having to cook, and I was sold. So yes, I’m that creepy junior who stakes out the dorms, sneaks in after people, and eats around a bunch of freshmen. Good thing I don’t have any shame. Unfortunately, though, my meal plan hadn’t been activated by the time that I got up to school on Sunday, so I had to provide for myself.
I actually ended up getting me some McDonald’s, though, so I have to say that it ended up being pretty friggin’ fantastic. PLUS, I had the McDonald’s dollars that my grandpa had given me for Christmas! Yay for free double cheeseburgers! And yes, I mean double cheeseburgers. No McDouble on this day. I was playing for keepsies, son! This day was turning out pretty legitly.
And no doubt I had plans for my first night back upon my return to school. Had to see my broheims again! I went over to Geoff’s place at like 9:45 or so (he lives in the Melrose apartments which are darn near as far away from me as you can get – like it’s seriously a 25 or so minute walk). I got there and the first thing he told me was that we were going to go over to Chelsea’s place to chill. Turns out he’d called me whilst I was walking to tell me this and offer me a ride. Now just so you know, Chelsea lives about 6 blocks from me (i.e. like 10 minutes max), so I easily could’ve walked this. However, I’m apparently incapable of feeling vibration in my pants (HA!) when I can’t actually feel my leg due to the absurd cold that I was experiencing.
At this point I called Ann to let her know what was up, as I’d told her to me us at Geoff’s for such a thing. Turns out she was just arriving as well. So I hopped in her car and we headed off while Geoff jumped in the car of his brother for to rock that shiz.
We found ourselves at Chelsea’s shortly thereafter. We being the aforementioned people, my broheim Nick, and some other relatively cool guy whose name escapes me at the moment. We didn’t actually do much outside of play Guitar Hero and just generally chill AND make another trip to McDonald’s! HECK YEAH! I was fortunate enough to be reminded of what it was like to be back in the city right away as I saw some dude get arrested and a fight break out at the aforementioned fantastic place of sustenance procuring. Yay Minneapolis, where the crime rate’s as high as Snoop Dogg! Dang, that’s a bumper sticker waiting to happen *pats self on back for making a lame, easy, and obvious joke*.
I got back to the house at like a little after 3:00 in the morning after a fan-friggin’-tastic night. My initial thoughts upon my return to see both my roommates sleeping were something along the lines of, “Wow, these dudes are going to hate me.” (Again, yes, I know that you don’t put quotes around thoughts so back off! :-)). Like, I was going to be the guy who stays up/comes home super-late and sleeps in late on the days he has off. Meh, hopefully I don’t swear at these guys in my sleep..
But yeah, that was my first night back in las ciudades. Waking up the neighborhood, indeed. Sadly, though, classes were to start on Tuesday, so I was going to actually have to do stuff shortly. On that note, I’m now going to give y’all a bit of a rundown of my six classes in general. Heck, how about just an overview of a standard Tuesday afternoon for y’all? A day in the life of Aaron, if you will. Perhaps even “Tuesdays with Aaron.” Oprah’s going to be all over that, for sure! :p
My alarm rings at 6:35 am. Groggy from going to bed at like 2:30 am the previous night, I say a quick prayer and stumble out of bed to begin the day. I take myself a nice little poop, shave, and then hop in the shower in what usually amounts to a futile attempt at waking myself up. I return to my room shortly after to consume my breakfast of a bowl of cheerios, a nutri-grain bar, an apple, and a banana whilst listening to some High School Musical 3 soundtrack, checking my emails, and taking a brief gander at any fight news that I should be aware of.
At like 7:25 I roll out of the house because I have to make it to Carlson (the business school - like a 16 minute walk) and print some stuff out in the lab before class starts at 8:15. Typically, I hate being in computer labs in general. They’re always super-mega crowded and oftentimes full of annoying people (don’t even get me started on the lab at the Fund in Spain), but at this absurdly early hour it’s usually quite all right.
Now I know you’re asking, “Don’t you have your own printer?” Well, yes, yes, I do. But I ran out of ink sometime fall of last year and decided to not replace it. Carlson students pay like a $450 lab fee per friggin’ semester, so this entitles us to basically unlimited printing (within some sort of reason, I guess). Thus, I came to the conclusion that since I was getting ROYALLY screwed by having to pay this much, I was going to take Carlson to TOWN on printing. Entonces, every chance I get, I’m printing stuff. All my homework, articles I’m supposed to read, Bible study stuff, whatever, it all gets printed there. Heck, I may or may not have let someone last year print some stuff as well using my password. So take THAT Carlson!
Seriously, I was talking one of my housemates, Josh, at some point within the past couple weeks about this, and he said that IT (Institute of Technology) kids pay like $40 per semester and get like 500 pages or printing for that (I think those are the numbers he gave me). So let’s run the numbers on that, my friends. That means that I’d have to print out 5625 pages per semester make everything equal. So there’s no doubt that I’m a price taker and not a price giver (microecon reference FOR THE WIN!) in this setting. Ergo, I always try to pwn Carlson in any way imaginable. And in general, just throwing this out there, but I’m not a big fan of Carlson and everything about it as a whole. But meh, that’ll be touched upon more later.
So I finish off printing and head over to Hanson Hall (which is connected to Carlson via a skyway). Now Hanson Hall’s the new building on campus (literally, like it was completed over the summer). It was created basically so Carlson could enroll more students and thus get more money. *shakes head* Tools.
But moving on, this first class of the day is Accounting 3001. The second and final accounting class that all the business students have to take. Now, I don’t want to offend anybody, but let me be real here for a second. Accounting sucks. It’s the most boring, dry dribble that I could ever imagine. It’s oftentimes unnecessarily complicated, and well… just stupid. One has to have a special kind of personality to be an accountant. One that’s typically not good with people. Thankfully, though, my teacher doesn’t really suck too bad. He’s actually kind of enjoyable at times. He’s got a decent sense of humor as well, which helps to lighten the mood. Plus, he always wears a sweatshirt and jeans, which is a welcome change from all the pretentious garbage that goes on inside Carlson. Nonetheless, though, it’s accounting, so it can’t be too grand. And he uses the word “notion.” And I’ve come to the conclusion that if you regularly use that word, you’re a tool. No matter how cool you seem on the outside, you’re probs a tool to some extent, my friend. Overall, though, I quite enjoy this guy.
I typically just sit myself in the back of the room and sorta follow along with what he’s doing/do other homework by myself. Occasionally, I’ll sit with a couple of the dudes in that class that I know, but usually I just want to rock the homework in the back in peace. I had originally registered for that class with my friend Jane from Spain (accidental rhyme!), but sadly she had to switch that class to a different hour after about a week of having it with me. But meh, it’s all good in the hood. Gives me time to work on all the stuff I procrastinated on from the previous night.
That class finishes up at 9:30, which gives me a bit of time to walk back across the skyway and partake in any readings/finish any other homework I might have before Marketing 3010 starts up at 9:55. Nice.
Apparently, marketing’s my major (along with international business), so it should be enjoyable to me, but this class is marketing research, and the teacher sucks. His name is Tony and… well… like I said, he sucks. I believe he’s from Hong Kong (or at least China), but thankfully there’s no real problem understanding him. But he does have a horrible habit of downplaying the difficulty of things we do in class. Like we just went over some complicated probability stuff this past week, and normally, I’d say that such a topic should be pretty chill. I mean, I’ve got legit math skills and have been busting probability for years but this guy just can’t teach it all. He busts through the topic the whole time saying, “It’s very simple, no?” as the entire class sits around with their thumbs up their gluteus maximuses (maximi?). Seriously, this class is by far the hardest one for me to stay awake in. I’m sure that has a fair amount to do with the time-age and such (it being an hour and forty minutes also nearing lunch time), but whatevs. It’s harsh. On the positive side, though, I think I’m getting pretty good at falling asleep without anyone noticing. Either that or people just don’t call me out on it for whatever reason… *shrugs*
And the worst thing of all is that he’s seemingly an Asian who can’t do math. WHAT?! Yeah, like for one of our homework problems he used the trigonometric function “sine” as something to designate whether something was positive or negative, which made NO sense at all given the problem. AND he abbreviated it as “sgn.” What the smurf? Pretty sure it’s “sin,” broheim. And don’t try and tell me that he meant “sgn” as “sign” as in positive or negative “sign.” Because that still makes little sense as a whole. Just say positive or negative then. So dumb. But nonetheless, there’s some pretty chill people in that class, and we spend a fair amount of time in the lab (which means I can screw around the internet while he talks), so it’s all g, overall.
I crush out of this class at 11:35 and head over to the residence hall known as Middlebrook (my former home from last year) for to procure some food-age. I tailgate in behind someone and head down to the dining area to get me some lunch. I always have some difficulty, though, when I’m down there in trying not to LEVEL anyone with my overly-sized novelty backpack that I have hanging off me at this point. Seriously, that thing is huge, and I’m quite positive that at some point, I’m just going to smash someone with it and send food flying everywhere. Then I’ll get kicked out and will never be allowed in Middlebrook again.
Not gonna lie, though, given the manner in which my cohorts and I ate in last year, it’s actually a little surprising that we were never booted from such an establishment. I can’t even begin to tell you all the crap that we did over there. I will say one thing, though: awesomely carved apple-transformer dealies through the utilization of utensils. Think about it..
But anyways, after said procuration said food-age (which includes several pieces of fruit that I store in my backpack for later consuming) I wander into the eating area to find my good friend Katie for to eat. Katie’s currently a freshman this year, but we went to high school together and had some darn fine times not doing anything in math class over the years. And every year for the past few, she, I, and a couple of other peeps end up chilling until some ridiculous hour of the night at the Renville County’s Relay for Life; that’s quite possibly my favorite night of the year. Always marked by awesomeness.
After we finish rocking the food-ness, I head back over to Carlson and use the like 15 or so minutes that I have before my next class to chill in the computer lab and do any online homework that I may have for my horrid sustainability class (which I’m looking forward to talking about in a bit). Of course, at this hour of the day, the lab is crazy-packed with all sorts of peeps. Funsies. I always feel a little weird being in there at crowded times of the day such as this. Not because I don’t like giant groups of personas, but because I feel dumb checking my facebook and/or searching out fight-related things after rocking any h-dub (as in hw as in homework). Like, there’s probably some people who have actual work that they’d like to do, and sometimes I’m just wasting time in there stalking random people on facebook. Meh.
Nonetheless, this time is short-lived as Human Resources and Industrial Relations (HRIR) 3021 starts at 12:45. I head in the back door, as per usual, to the classroom and find my spot within the giant lecture hall thingy (I believe there’s like 120 students in this class) alongside my fellow group members. I make some quick small talk with these guys and some of the people around me before the prof walks in.
Now, most people have a very favorable view of this character. Me, not so much. But that’s perhaps just because I’m hyper-critical of anyone in a position of authority within the business school. He actually seems like a pretty caring individual, is a really intelligent man, and is a well-groomed person (what?). But I don’t know, a couple things he does just annoy me. Like, he’s very concerned about basically never receiving emails from the students. All of them should go to the TA. That’s not that bad, but he even tells us not to reply to the ones that he himself specifically sends out. As in, we’re not to reply to him, but rather start a new thread and send it to the TA. Plus, he uses the word notion a lot and just in general seems to have some sort of slight superiority complex. And during our review session for the test we just took the other day, he was explaining there were going to be 18 multiple choice questions and that we got to cross out 3 of them. Thus, we only had to answer 15 of them. He didn’t exactly word this the best, and a few people were rightly confused. It took him about 7 seconds to become annoyed at the class and threaten to take them away. Dirtbag.
I realize that I’m coming off as a complete d-till here as I’m doing nothing but complain about my teachers, but again, it’s Carlson. So you know that I’m right about this to some extent. Just to get a better idea of what I’m talking about in general, Amy, go to urban dictionary right now and search for “Carlson School of Management.” Do it. Then you’ll know.
But anyways, the class itself isn’t too bad. I quite enjoy the members of my group, so that’s the important thing. The material’s a little dry sometime, but that’s to be expected. *shrugs* Occasionally, this class is a battle to stay awake through, but that’s my own fault for never sleeping during the week.
This class finishes at 2:00, which gives me 15 minutes before Management 3033W (“W” = writing intensive) starts. Not too much of an issue as it’s just two floors up in the same building. So I take my time getting there and rep some water fountain awesomeness and the like on my way over there. I eventually walk in and take my standard place in the back of the room next to Shawna (who also happens to be in my HRIR group). She and I “shoot the breeze” as the kids say until JoAnn Syverson walks in.
JoAnn’s a pretty chill person, but let me preface this by saying that MGMT 3033W is basically a speech and writing class. So, Amy, she’s a speech teacher. Think Richards minus the horrible, think-she’s-seconds-away-from-death coughing. She actually kind of looks like her too… Assuming, Richards were about 10 years younger and like 4 or 5 inches taller. But yeah, I’ve now come to the conclusion that all speech teachers are alike based on the fact that the only two that I know are similar. Yeah, I know that’s not enough to make a legit conclusion with, but whatevs, it’s my blog and that’s how I do, son! :-)
She’s probably actually most well-known for being the person who introduced Obama when he came and spoke at the Target Center (I think that was the venue anyway) a few months back. Not gonna lie, that’s pretty cool that she got to do that.
So yeah, for the most part during this class I’m interacting with my friend Parag, who sits in the row in front of me. Parag’s a super-funny cat that I’ve known since sometime freshman year. Every time JoAnn turns her back, he’s turning around and saying something to me. I know that she sees us talking a fair amount during her class too, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from looking at me like every 84 seconds and saying something. Meh, makes the class go by faster. And what’s she going to say when Parag and I are the two best speech givers in that class? :-)
She actually called him out on this during the last class period. She asked him who he’s always turning around and talking to. She said that she thought it was me, but that I never reacted to him, so she wasn’t sure. SNAP! That’s me just owning her in that case, son!
I actually had a pretty awkward moment with her the other day that I’d prefer forget about. Which is obvious based on the fact that I’m writing about it here, where it’ll be immortalized forever on the internets.. But nonetheless, here we go. This really isn’t a very good story, but if you think about it, you’ll get me on this one. Basically, it was before class, and I’d dumped my stuff off in the room. I looked up at the clock, saw that I had some time still, and decided that it was urinate-thirty. Entonces, I wandered out of the room to the place where such a thing typically occurs. I went in, quickly and promptly finished my business, and bounced out. At the EXACT moment I opened the door to leave, JoAnn opened the door to leave the women’s restroom (which is DIRECTLY across the guys’ one). Thus, we made some awkward as frigg eye contact, shot our glances downward and walked toward the classroom. I did my best to pretend it didn’t happen as I booked it toward the room. *shivers*
But meh, that’s enough about this class. I bust out at like 3:30 and head back home to the 1018 house. I typically get back home at like 3:46, which gives me about 25 minutes to relax (i.e. facebook) before I have to roll off to Sustainable People, Sustainable Planet 3003, which starts at 4:30.
Here’s where the fun begins. Now I realize that the majority of this post has probably been relatively boring up to this point (and I’m going to do my best to go back and throw in some sweet metaphors/analogies/pics later to make it not suck, but yeah, we’ll see…), but it should be more entertaining for this parte :-)
I walk into the class (which is in the armory of all places) and find a random spot in the back in order to be as far from the teacher as possible. I do this because I don’t want him to eat my soul like a snickers bar. Now, he’s not like a mean guy at all; he’s actually super-nice, but I feel like he (and everyone in the class for that matter) hates me because I’m a business student who loves to hunt.
What? Ok, Sustainability 3003 might as well be called “How to be a Complete Hippy 101.” The whole idea behind this concept of “sustainability” is that we as humans are doing too much damage to the planet and need to change our current ways in order to make the earth just as livable for future generations as it currently is for us. Thus, pretty much everyone in that class just strikes me as a complete tree hugger as they all actually want to be there whereas I’m just there to get my liberal education credits and escape with my soul still intact.
The teacher’s name is Derric Farmingtonsworth (or something like that). Yeah, “Derric” no “k” “Farmingtonswort.” Farmingtonsworth? Yep. Doesn’t the name itself just force you to conjure up images of sweater-vest wearing tools from like Greenwich, Connecticut? Well, if you’re actually picturing that, you’re not too far off. Except this guy doesn’t take care of his hair. I swear he doesn’t shower regularly. He comes in with just horrid, matted down looking hair that’s arranged in a way that one could accurately describe as being a comb-over. Except he’s not balding. It’s super-weird. You know a guy’s a tree hugger when he doesn’t bathe before going to a class that HE TEACHES.
So basically I sit in the room for an hour and 15 minutes trying not to have my head explode from all this hippy noise that’s being spread throughout the classroom. Now, I’ll admit that we as humans definitely consume too much, and there’re definitely some things that we should change. But leave your agenda at the door, sir, and be real for a second. This dude’s so far detached from reality that it literally boggles my mind sometimes.
I’ve actually taken to writing down all the ridiculous things that are said in that room during the hour just to (a) keep me awake and (b) so I have a log of them. Kind of like how in my Spain and the European Union class last semester when I kept track of how often my prof said the word “vale” (pronounced “va-lay”). I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this story before or not, but I’ll bust it quickly here for you guys.
So yeah, remember that teacher that I awkwardly tried to cheek-to-cheek kiss at the graduation ceremony in Spain? Yeah, this is her. She had a HUGE affinity for saying some phrases an absurd amount of times during class. Her favorite of these words was the aforementioned “vale.” Just because I am who I am, I had to start keeping track of just how often she said this word. She topped out once at 302 ½ times. Yeah, a half. I count that because she stopped once mid-word as she was interrupted. Now keep in mind that classes were only 75 minutes long. This equates to her saying that word literally once every 15 seconds! CRAZINESS!
But yeah, back to the matter at hand here: this guy. Here’re some of the things that I’ve logged from this class:
(1/27/09)
5:14 pm: He just said “irregardless.” That’s not a legitimate word, my friend.
(1/29/09)
4:50 pm: Some OTHER dude just said “irregardless.” This is indeed a startling trend that must be indicative of the type of people I’m around.
5:05 pm: One step at a time, just like rehab.
5:20 pm: (on a slide of his) “Meat as a Treat, Not a Foundation.” You, sir, can get the [smurf] out!
5:27 pm: Is he actually trying to tie obesity to caloric intake? Genius.
5:37 pm: Is “sprawliest” a word?
(2/3/09)
(After putting up a slide that said, “…it’s both morally and economically wrong to treat the world as a business liquidation,” which is a fine and dandy idea but he had a) “stupid smurf-eating grin on his face like he’s trying to stir up some controversy in class.” He seriously looked like Amy and I probably did after we put our mom’s makeup all over that one random dresser upstairs in our house. Like you know you did something wrong, but you sort of (or definitely, in his case) just to see what the reaction would be from everyone else.
2/5/09
5:20 pm: He just pronounced “Descartes” as “Diz-cart-ayes.” That’s the sign of an educated and hygienically clean man.
So yeah, my writings about this cat are becoming a little more and more anger-filled with each passing class period. We’ll see where this leads..
I’m not sure if I should do this, but what the frigg, the follwing is an email that he sent out to the class the other week:
Howdy emerging system thinkers,
In addition to the Meadows piece, I have attached a supplemental reading for Tuesday by Wendell Berry entitled, Solving for Pattern; its short and provides another take on "systems thinking." It also relates to our in-class-working example of a system, and given the discussion in the forum, I thought you might appreciate an essay by Berry. So please check it out! For those of you interested in the sustainable agriculture reference I mentioned, please check out Berry, The Unsettling of America: culture and agriculture.
You will also find attached two images of the study area for our system example, a conventional corn-soybean farm. Our farm in question is outlined in blue. Take some time to examine the biophysical surroundings at the larger landscape and farm-level.
Note: our farmer acquired a couple adjacent farms during the late 1970s.
Again, for Tuesday's class, please do the following: 1. Individually - List the elements or “things” that would be found in this system based on your current knowledge: social, ecological, economical. Please refer to the Daniel Paper if needed. You can also download the slide presentation as a quicktime movie or download the file into iTunes and watch on your iPod!! Wow, isn't technology cool.
Have a great weekend.
Have fun and be safe,
Derric
Yeah. That’s for real. Mercifully, though, that class gets out at 5:45 and I basically bolt out, kill a panda with my bare hands, and then drink its blood in an attempt to atone for what I was just subjected to for the preceeding 75 minutes.
I head over to Blegen Hall for my last class of the day. I arrive over there right around 6:00 which gives me about 20 minutes to go buy myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from the café there, bust out one of the bananas that I stole from lunch, grab a paper, and just chill. I always like reading the “Dr. Date” section of the Minnesota Daily (which is the U of M’s paper). There’s never a time where my self-esteem isn’t raised after reading about all the crazy problems that people have in relation to their love lives. Just warms the heart like hot chocolate on Christmas morning.
This final hurdle to leap is Political Science 3835: International Relations. This is actually a very interesting class. In theory. Like, the readings and such are super-intriguing, and I feel that if I had the motivation to, you know, read them, I’d learn a lot. Unfortunately, I don’t usually really have that ambition to get through a hundred or so pages of reading a week for just this class. Although, this is one of those times where I’m going to actually try and get myself into the material because I think it’s worth it in this case. Wait, who am I kidding? No, I'm not.
Unfortunately, the prof's lectures don’t match up in the slightest with the readings in terms of legit-ness. He has a crazy monotonistic voice that can only remind someone of Ben Stein’s character from the major motion picture known as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” It’s weird because he’s clearly extremely knowledgeable in terms of the material at hand, but he has no passion at all in his voice. He seems like he’s interested in what he’s saying, but it doesn’t come out that way at all. Basically, for 2 ½ hours he just regurgitates a BUNCH of information into our mouths like we’re baby sparrows and he’s our mother. Although, I might actually be more prone to asking for the mushed up worm than what he’s tossing back at us.
Eventually for this class, we have to do a 40-60 minute group presentation on some international relations topic. The first group went last week, and it was ridiculously boring and dry. The prof said that he pretty much loved it. Thus, I know that I’m not going to take it seriously at all. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to make it a complete inside joke. A joke so inside that I’ll be the only person in the class who knows what’s going on. My current plan is to see how many High School Musical references I can throw into my speech. Yeah, I know. That’s pretty ridiculous, but meh, whatevs. I’m sure a few girls in the class will think something’s up, but I have no plans on telling anyone this within the class. I’m going to think the entire thing’s hysterical. I’m almost looking forward to this thing… You know, some of these jokes are just for me :-)
Mercifully, this class gets out at 8:50 and it’s all smooth sailing from here. Why, you ask? Because it’s TACO TUESDAY!!! By far my favorite dinner-ness of the week! I head out of Blegen Hall off toward Centennial (or “Cen-Ten,” if you will) to meet up with my broheims. Typically the peeps besides myself = the aforementioned Geoff and Nick, Jack (another member of our group from last year), and Chris (a Cru compatriot and member of my B-stud last year and also a friend of Geoff’s from class). Solid group.
I take full advantage of this night and basically pwn my body in a horrible manner. This is the only time of the week where I can say that I’m really unhealthy. I crush down 4 tacos and 3 or 4 pieces of pizza every time along with some milk, orange juice, and perhaps some other form of juice. And because I have my backpack with me, I go CRAZY jacking fruit. So far I’ve topped out at 11 pieces of questionably acquired pieces of fruta (which includes apples, oranges, and bananas). Not gonna lie, I’m pretty proud of that. And heck, I’ve paid for that food. Well… technically not yet, as I haven’t paid my bill yet, but I will within the next couple days, and that’s not the point. The point is that the dining hall is mine to pillage and ain’t nothing going to stop me, son! *does pushups due to being so pumped up*
But yeah, the lot of us usually spend almost 2 hours down there consuming food and just living the dream. No doubt a phenomenal way to end what’s always a long friggin’ day. I typically end up getting back to my house at a little after 11:00, like 15 ½ hours after starting the whole mess. Nice. Then, if all goes well, I rock a little Bible reading, screw around on the comp for a while, hit the bed, and then hopefully hopefully hopefully get some adequate sleep.. No doubt that at this point the neighborhood is in fact awake, but even Superman sleeps sometimes. Wait... does he? ...Did I just compare myself to Superman? Wow, I AM a Carlson tool :p
But yeah, like I stated, I’m back. In pog form. *shakes head* Ok, gots to get down to business. Too many random references for this early in a post. Anyways, so I’m sitting here in me house just chilling and thinking about how much I suck at writing on this thing. I’m not saying that my suckage is going to change (because let’s be honest here, these entries of mine are EPICALLY long, and I simply don’t have the time to rep everything up that I’d like to over here), but it’s defs time for another entry. Ergo, hope you enjoy, Amy! :-)
So I got back up to Minneapolis at about 3:35 pm on Sunday, January 20, in the year of our Lord 2009. I was to be moving into the famed 1018 house on University. Not going to lie, I was having some mixed emotions about this. I mean, I was going to be living with 11 other guys (with 2 other peeps in my room). That’s a lot dudes, f’real. I knew err’body was going to be chill because they’re all Campus Crusade for Christ’ers like myself. But nonetheless, lotta dude-age in one place. Especially considering that last year I had my own room for a fair amount of spring semester. Granted, I didn’t have my own cuarto in the slightest whilst in Spain because Luís NEVER left the room, but whatevs, I was never around, so it didn’t really matter. Meh.But I have to say that things are pretty solid over here. I’m not around too much, so that’s good, but most importantly, the guys are all super-cool. I knew a few of them before moving in, so that was nice, but the guys I’ve met here are tight as well. My two roommates Weston and Eric are straight-money, so I must say, that it’s all hood, indeed.It’s actually a bit surreal to think about the fact that I live at the 1018 house. I went to a party here my first weekend at the U freshmen year. Now I live here. That’s crazy. I know just how much of a stud all the guys that have lived here in the past are, and it’s pretty sweet to think that I’m carrying on some sort of tradition like that. I mean, not that I’m half the man that like Ben Cornish (my former Bible study leader), Jon Neal (another stud), and such are (because I’m not), but you know what I mean.
Speaking of first weekend freshmen year, just gotta throw something out there. “In the Presence” is a BS rule. Story time, my sister. So it was Friday, again my first weekend at the U. I’d met a couple guys at dinner that night randomly (Mark and Noah) and had gone out with them and another dude (James) that night to just wander around and chill. At the end of the night, they all said that they were going to go to some party in St. Paul to hang. I knew the vast majority of the people there would be drinking, so I decided to not rep this one up (plus I probs would’ve had to have slept there and such, and I didn’t so much want to roll like that on that night).Thus, I went back into my hall just to chill and see what was up. Turns out there was a party in one of the rooms right across the hall from mine. I sat around in the hall talking to people for a bit before I finally decided to venture in. I mean, frigg, it was the first weekend (yeah, I’m repeating that a lot, but it’s probs necessary for ye to take the journey with me on this one… Ok, maybe not, but whatevs), and I wanted to meet some people.
I walk into the room and see just a bunch of people drinking. Obviously, I don’t partake in that (and still don’t), so I just kinda start talking to some random people. After like 10 minutes, two people decide to leave. So they open the door and head out. Of course at this friggin’ EXACT moment, two CA’s walk past. So they see what’s up, come in, and basically bust everyone. Yeah, so I got cited for 3 out of the 4 possible violations for this scenario: In the presence of alcohol, in the presence of containers, and something that I don’t really remember but was similar to like just “breaking regulations” or something stupid como así (How redundant are those 3 things? Like, if you break one, you’ve broken them all. Stupid stupid stuff). I didn’t go down for drinking, though, so that’s good. Odd, though, that I specifically chose not to go to a party where there’d be drinking only to get busted at a different party where there was drinking later on that same night..But yeah, I had to have a meeting with the uber-resident hall advisor-fuhrer lady to explain my situation. As a punishment for being a freshman trying to meet people, I had to complete two online things that just talked about how drinking was bad and such. I then had to write like a 2 page paper on each. Hm… I wonder if I still have those saved on my comp. I am a pack-rat… *searches* Turns out that I don’t. I must’ve just deleted them out of anguish and such. Point is, that rule is complete crap. I mean, what if I were the guy making sure no one gets super-mega trashed and dies? Or perhaps I’m the designated driver? Seriously, what the frigg? I mean, I understand busting people for underage drinking, but c’mon, in the presence? *shakes head* And of course, one can only get like three of these violations before getting kicked out of the dorms. Thus, I had to watch myself pretty carefully for the rest of the year. First weekend. Heck, first day of the first weekend of the first year of school and I’ve already got the residential housing association on my back. Dumb.
Nonetheless, I found it moderately ironic that the next day I was at a Cru party where there was a sign right inside the door that said “NO ALCOHOL ALLOWED.” Of course, I joked with someone else there that someone should point a comma in there, so it would read “NO, ALCOHOL ALLOWED.” Oh grammar jokes, how funny you are! Point is, now I live here. And it’s pretty tight overall. Not gonna lie.One thing about living in a house is that I wouldn’t have easy access to dorm food anymore. In theory, I was supposed to cook and such now. But I thought about this for a while before moving in. I was going to be busy as frigg with all the crazy crap that I do whilst up here, and I really didn’t think I’d have the time nor desire to prepare my own food on a consistent basis. So I ran the numbers on how much a residential meal plan actually cost. Turns out that it’s like $6.67 per meal. Not too friggin’ bad, I’d say. Couple that with the convenience factor of not having to cook, and I was sold. So yes, I’m that creepy junior who stakes out the dorms, sneaks in after people, and eats around a bunch of freshmen. Good thing I don’t have any shame. Unfortunately, though, my meal plan hadn’t been activated by the time that I got up to school on Sunday, so I had to provide for myself.I actually ended up getting me some McDonald’s, though, so I have to say that it ended up being pretty friggin’ fantastic. PLUS, I had the McDonald’s dollars that my grandpa had given me for Christmas! Yay for free double cheeseburgers! And yes, I mean double cheeseburgers. No McDouble on this day. I was playing for keepsies, son! This day was turning out pretty legitly.And no doubt I had plans for my first night back upon my return to school. Had to see my broheims again! I went over to Geoff’s place at like 9:45 or so (he lives in the Melrose apartments which are darn near as far away from me as you can get – like it’s seriously a 25 or so minute walk). I got there and the first thing he told me was that we were going to go over to Chelsea’s place to chill. Turns out he’d called me whilst I was walking to tell me this and offer me a ride. Now just so you know, Chelsea lives about 6 blocks from me (i.e. like 10 minutes max), so I easily could’ve walked this. However, I’m apparently incapable of feeling vibration in my pants (HA!) when I can’t actually feel my leg due to the absurd cold that I was experiencing.
At this point I called Ann to let her know what was up, as I’d told her to me us at Geoff’s for such a thing. Turns out she was just arriving as well. So I hopped in her car and we headed off while Geoff jumped in the car of his brother for to rock that shiz.We found ourselves at Chelsea’s shortly thereafter. We being the aforementioned people, my broheim Nick, and some other relatively cool guy whose name escapes me at the moment. We didn’t actually do much outside of play Guitar Hero and just generally chill AND make another trip to McDonald’s! HECK YEAH! I was fortunate enough to be reminded of what it was like to be back in the city right away as I saw some dude get arrested and a fight break out at the aforementioned fantastic place of sustenance procuring. Yay Minneapolis, where the crime rate’s as high as Snoop Dogg! Dang, that’s a bumper sticker waiting to happen *pats self on back for making a lame, easy, and obvious joke*.
I got back to the house at like a little after 3:00 in the morning after a fan-friggin’-tastic night. My initial thoughts upon my return to see both my roommates sleeping were something along the lines of, “Wow, these dudes are going to hate me.” (Again, yes, I know that you don’t put quotes around thoughts so back off! :-)). Like, I was going to be the guy who stays up/comes home super-late and sleeps in late on the days he has off. Meh, hopefully I don’t swear at these guys in my sleep..But yeah, that was my first night back in las ciudades. Waking up the neighborhood, indeed. Sadly, though, classes were to start on Tuesday, so I was going to actually have to do stuff shortly. On that note, I’m now going to give y’all a bit of a rundown of my six classes in general. Heck, how about just an overview of a standard Tuesday afternoon for y’all? A day in the life of Aaron, if you will. Perhaps even “Tuesdays with Aaron.” Oprah’s going to be all over that, for sure! :p
My alarm rings at 6:35 am. Groggy from going to bed at like 2:30 am the previous night, I say a quick prayer and stumble out of bed to begin the day. I take myself a nice little poop, shave, and then hop in the shower in what usually amounts to a futile attempt at waking myself up. I return to my room shortly after to consume my breakfast of a bowl of cheerios, a nutri-grain bar, an apple, and a banana whilst listening to some High School Musical 3 soundtrack, checking my emails, and taking a brief gander at any fight news that I should be aware of.At like 7:25 I roll out of the house because I have to make it to Carlson (the business school - like a 16 minute walk) and print some stuff out in the lab before class starts at 8:15. Typically, I hate being in computer labs in general. They’re always super-mega crowded and oftentimes full of annoying people (don’t even get me started on the lab at the Fund in Spain), but at this absurdly early hour it’s usually quite all right.
Now I know you’re asking, “Don’t you have your own printer?” Well, yes, yes, I do. But I ran out of ink sometime fall of last year and decided to not replace it. Carlson students pay like a $450 lab fee per friggin’ semester, so this entitles us to basically unlimited printing (within some sort of reason, I guess). Thus, I came to the conclusion that since I was getting ROYALLY screwed by having to pay this much, I was going to take Carlson to TOWN on printing. Entonces, every chance I get, I’m printing stuff. All my homework, articles I’m supposed to read, Bible study stuff, whatever, it all gets printed there. Heck, I may or may not have let someone last year print some stuff as well using my password. So take THAT Carlson!
Seriously, I was talking one of my housemates, Josh, at some point within the past couple weeks about this, and he said that IT (Institute of Technology) kids pay like $40 per semester and get like 500 pages or printing for that (I think those are the numbers he gave me). So let’s run the numbers on that, my friends. That means that I’d have to print out 5625 pages per semester make everything equal. So there’s no doubt that I’m a price taker and not a price giver (microecon reference FOR THE WIN!) in this setting. Ergo, I always try to pwn Carlson in any way imaginable. And in general, just throwing this out there, but I’m not a big fan of Carlson and everything about it as a whole. But meh, that’ll be touched upon more later.So I finish off printing and head over to Hanson Hall (which is connected to Carlson via a skyway). Now Hanson Hall’s the new building on campus (literally, like it was completed over the summer). It was created basically so Carlson could enroll more students and thus get more money. *shakes head* Tools.But moving on, this first class of the day is Accounting 3001. The second and final accounting class that all the business students have to take. Now, I don’t want to offend anybody, but let me be real here for a second. Accounting sucks. It’s the most boring, dry dribble that I could ever imagine. It’s oftentimes unnecessarily complicated, and well… just stupid. One has to have a special kind of personality to be an accountant. One that’s typically not good with people. Thankfully, though, my teacher doesn’t really suck too bad. He’s actually kind of enjoyable at times. He’s got a decent sense of humor as well, which helps to lighten the mood. Plus, he always wears a sweatshirt and jeans, which is a welcome change from all the pretentious garbage that goes on inside Carlson. Nonetheless, though, it’s accounting, so it can’t be too grand. And he uses the word “notion.” And I’ve come to the conclusion that if you regularly use that word, you’re a tool. No matter how cool you seem on the outside, you’re probs a tool to some extent, my friend. Overall, though, I quite enjoy this guy.I typically just sit myself in the back of the room and sorta follow along with what he’s doing/do other homework by myself. Occasionally, I’ll sit with a couple of the dudes in that class that I know, but usually I just want to rock the homework in the back in peace. I had originally registered for that class with my friend Jane from Spain (accidental rhyme!), but sadly she had to switch that class to a different hour after about a week of having it with me. But meh, it’s all good in the hood. Gives me time to work on all the stuff I procrastinated on from the previous night.
That class finishes up at 9:30, which gives me a bit of time to walk back across the skyway and partake in any readings/finish any other homework I might have before Marketing 3010 starts up at 9:55. Nice.Apparently, marketing’s my major (along with international business), so it should be enjoyable to me, but this class is marketing research, and the teacher sucks. His name is Tony and… well… like I said, he sucks. I believe he’s from Hong Kong (or at least China), but thankfully there’s no real problem understanding him. But he does have a horrible habit of downplaying the difficulty of things we do in class. Like we just went over some complicated probability stuff this past week, and normally, I’d say that such a topic should be pretty chill. I mean, I’ve got legit math skills and have been busting probability for years but this guy just can’t teach it all. He busts through the topic the whole time saying, “It’s very simple, no?” as the entire class sits around with their thumbs up their gluteus maximuses (maximi?). Seriously, this class is by far the hardest one for me to stay awake in. I’m sure that has a fair amount to do with the time-age and such (it being an hour and forty minutes also nearing lunch time), but whatevs. It’s harsh. On the positive side, though, I think I’m getting pretty good at falling asleep without anyone noticing. Either that or people just don’t call me out on it for whatever reason… *shrugs*
And the worst thing of all is that he’s seemingly an Asian who can’t do math. WHAT?! Yeah, like for one of our homework problems he used the trigonometric function “sine” as something to designate whether something was positive or negative, which made NO sense at all given the problem. AND he abbreviated it as “sgn.” What the smurf? Pretty sure it’s “sin,” broheim. And don’t try and tell me that he meant “sgn” as “sign” as in positive or negative “sign.” Because that still makes little sense as a whole. Just say positive or negative then. So dumb. But nonetheless, there’s some pretty chill people in that class, and we spend a fair amount of time in the lab (which means I can screw around the internet while he talks), so it’s all g, overall.
I crush out of this class at 11:35 and head over to the residence hall known as Middlebrook (my former home from last year) for to procure some food-age. I tailgate in behind someone and head down to the dining area to get me some lunch. I always have some difficulty, though, when I’m down there in trying not to LEVEL anyone with my overly-sized novelty backpack that I have hanging off me at this point. Seriously, that thing is huge, and I’m quite positive that at some point, I’m just going to smash someone with it and send food flying everywhere. Then I’ll get kicked out and will never be allowed in Middlebrook again.Not gonna lie, though, given the manner in which my cohorts and I ate in last year, it’s actually a little surprising that we were never booted from such an establishment. I can’t even begin to tell you all the crap that we did over there. I will say one thing, though: awesomely carved apple-transformer dealies through the utilization of utensils. Think about it..But anyways, after said procuration said food-age (which includes several pieces of fruit that I store in my backpack for later consuming) I wander into the eating area to find my good friend Katie for to eat. Katie’s currently a freshman this year, but we went to high school together and had some darn fine times not doing anything in math class over the years. And every year for the past few, she, I, and a couple of other peeps end up chilling until some ridiculous hour of the night at the Renville County’s Relay for Life; that’s quite possibly my favorite night of the year. Always marked by awesomeness.After we finish rocking the food-ness, I head back over to Carlson and use the like 15 or so minutes that I have before my next class to chill in the computer lab and do any online homework that I may have for my horrid sustainability class (which I’m looking forward to talking about in a bit). Of course, at this hour of the day, the lab is crazy-packed with all sorts of peeps. Funsies. I always feel a little weird being in there at crowded times of the day such as this. Not because I don’t like giant groups of personas, but because I feel dumb checking my facebook and/or searching out fight-related things after rocking any h-dub (as in hw as in homework). Like, there’s probably some people who have actual work that they’d like to do, and sometimes I’m just wasting time in there stalking random people on facebook. Meh.
Nonetheless, this time is short-lived as Human Resources and Industrial Relations (HRIR) 3021 starts at 12:45. I head in the back door, as per usual, to the classroom and find my spot within the giant lecture hall thingy (I believe there’s like 120 students in this class) alongside my fellow group members. I make some quick small talk with these guys and some of the people around me before the prof walks in.Now, most people have a very favorable view of this character. Me, not so much. But that’s perhaps just because I’m hyper-critical of anyone in a position of authority within the business school. He actually seems like a pretty caring individual, is a really intelligent man, and is a well-groomed person (what?). But I don’t know, a couple things he does just annoy me. Like, he’s very concerned about basically never receiving emails from the students. All of them should go to the TA. That’s not that bad, but he even tells us not to reply to the ones that he himself specifically sends out. As in, we’re not to reply to him, but rather start a new thread and send it to the TA. Plus, he uses the word notion a lot and just in general seems to have some sort of slight superiority complex. And during our review session for the test we just took the other day, he was explaining there were going to be 18 multiple choice questions and that we got to cross out 3 of them. Thus, we only had to answer 15 of them. He didn’t exactly word this the best, and a few people were rightly confused. It took him about 7 seconds to become annoyed at the class and threaten to take them away. Dirtbag.I realize that I’m coming off as a complete d-till here as I’m doing nothing but complain about my teachers, but again, it’s Carlson. So you know that I’m right about this to some extent. Just to get a better idea of what I’m talking about in general, Amy, go to urban dictionary right now and search for “Carlson School of Management.” Do it. Then you’ll know.
But anyways, the class itself isn’t too bad. I quite enjoy the members of my group, so that’s the important thing. The material’s a little dry sometime, but that’s to be expected. *shrugs* Occasionally, this class is a battle to stay awake through, but that’s my own fault for never sleeping during the week.This class finishes at 2:00, which gives me 15 minutes before Management 3033W (“W” = writing intensive) starts. Not too much of an issue as it’s just two floors up in the same building. So I take my time getting there and rep some water fountain awesomeness and the like on my way over there. I eventually walk in and take my standard place in the back of the room next to Shawna (who also happens to be in my HRIR group). She and I “shoot the breeze” as the kids say until JoAnn Syverson walks in.
JoAnn’s a pretty chill person, but let me preface this by saying that MGMT 3033W is basically a speech and writing class. So, Amy, she’s a speech teacher. Think Richards minus the horrible, think-she’s-seconds-away-from-death coughing. She actually kind of looks like her too… Assuming, Richards were about 10 years younger and like 4 or 5 inches taller. But yeah, I’ve now come to the conclusion that all speech teachers are alike based on the fact that the only two that I know are similar. Yeah, I know that’s not enough to make a legit conclusion with, but whatevs, it’s my blog and that’s how I do, son! :-)
She’s probably actually most well-known for being the person who introduced Obama when he came and spoke at the Target Center (I think that was the venue anyway) a few months back. Not gonna lie, that’s pretty cool that she got to do that.So yeah, for the most part during this class I’m interacting with my friend Parag, who sits in the row in front of me. Parag’s a super-funny cat that I’ve known since sometime freshman year. Every time JoAnn turns her back, he’s turning around and saying something to me. I know that she sees us talking a fair amount during her class too, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from looking at me like every 84 seconds and saying something. Meh, makes the class go by faster. And what’s she going to say when Parag and I are the two best speech givers in that class? :-)She actually called him out on this during the last class period. She asked him who he’s always turning around and talking to. She said that she thought it was me, but that I never reacted to him, so she wasn’t sure. SNAP! That’s me just owning her in that case, son!
I actually had a pretty awkward moment with her the other day that I’d prefer forget about. Which is obvious based on the fact that I’m writing about it here, where it’ll be immortalized forever on the internets.. But nonetheless, here we go. This really isn’t a very good story, but if you think about it, you’ll get me on this one. Basically, it was before class, and I’d dumped my stuff off in the room. I looked up at the clock, saw that I had some time still, and decided that it was urinate-thirty. Entonces, I wandered out of the room to the place where such a thing typically occurs. I went in, quickly and promptly finished my business, and bounced out. At the EXACT moment I opened the door to leave, JoAnn opened the door to leave the women’s restroom (which is DIRECTLY across the guys’ one). Thus, we made some awkward as frigg eye contact, shot our glances downward and walked toward the classroom. I did my best to pretend it didn’t happen as I booked it toward the room. *shivers*But meh, that’s enough about this class. I bust out at like 3:30 and head back home to the 1018 house. I typically get back home at like 3:46, which gives me about 25 minutes to relax (i.e. facebook) before I have to roll off to Sustainable People, Sustainable Planet 3003, which starts at 4:30.Here’s where the fun begins. Now I realize that the majority of this post has probably been relatively boring up to this point (and I’m going to do my best to go back and throw in some sweet metaphors/analogies/pics later to make it not suck, but yeah, we’ll see…), but it should be more entertaining for this parte :-)
I walk into the class (which is in the armory of all places) and find a random spot in the back in order to be as far from the teacher as possible. I do this because I don’t want him to eat my soul like a snickers bar. Now, he’s not like a mean guy at all; he’s actually super-nice, but I feel like he (and everyone in the class for that matter) hates me because I’m a business student who loves to hunt.
What? Ok, Sustainability 3003 might as well be called “How to be a Complete Hippy 101.” The whole idea behind this concept of “sustainability” is that we as humans are doing too much damage to the planet and need to change our current ways in order to make the earth just as livable for future generations as it currently is for us. Thus, pretty much everyone in that class just strikes me as a complete tree hugger as they all actually want to be there whereas I’m just there to get my liberal education credits and escape with my soul still intact.The teacher’s name is Derric Farmingtonsworth (or something like that). Yeah, “Derric” no “k” “Farmingtonswort.” Farmingtonsworth? Yep. Doesn’t the name itself just force you to conjure up images of sweater-vest wearing tools from like Greenwich, Connecticut? Well, if you’re actually picturing that, you’re not too far off. Except this guy doesn’t take care of his hair. I swear he doesn’t shower regularly. He comes in with just horrid, matted down looking hair that’s arranged in a way that one could accurately describe as being a comb-over. Except he’s not balding. It’s super-weird. You know a guy’s a tree hugger when he doesn’t bathe before going to a class that HE TEACHES.So basically I sit in the room for an hour and 15 minutes trying not to have my head explode from all this hippy noise that’s being spread throughout the classroom. Now, I’ll admit that we as humans definitely consume too much, and there’re definitely some things that we should change. But leave your agenda at the door, sir, and be real for a second. This dude’s so far detached from reality that it literally boggles my mind sometimes.I’ve actually taken to writing down all the ridiculous things that are said in that room during the hour just to (a) keep me awake and (b) so I have a log of them. Kind of like how in my Spain and the European Union class last semester when I kept track of how often my prof said the word “vale” (pronounced “va-lay”). I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this story before or not, but I’ll bust it quickly here for you guys.So yeah, remember that teacher that I awkwardly tried to cheek-to-cheek kiss at the graduation ceremony in Spain? Yeah, this is her. She had a HUGE affinity for saying some phrases an absurd amount of times during class. Her favorite of these words was the aforementioned “vale.” Just because I am who I am, I had to start keeping track of just how often she said this word. She topped out once at 302 ½ times. Yeah, a half. I count that because she stopped once mid-word as she was interrupted. Now keep in mind that classes were only 75 minutes long. This equates to her saying that word literally once every 15 seconds! CRAZINESS!
But yeah, back to the matter at hand here: this guy. Here’re some of the things that I’ve logged from this class:(1/27/09)
5:14 pm: He just said “irregardless.” That’s not a legitimate word, my friend.
(1/29/09)
4:50 pm: Some OTHER dude just said “irregardless.” This is indeed a startling trend that must be indicative of the type of people I’m around.
5:05 pm: One step at a time, just like rehab.
5:20 pm: (on a slide of his) “Meat as a Treat, Not a Foundation.” You, sir, can get the [smurf] out!
5:27 pm: Is he actually trying to tie obesity to caloric intake? Genius.
5:37 pm: Is “sprawliest” a word?
(2/3/09)
(After putting up a slide that said, “…it’s both morally and economically wrong to treat the world as a business liquidation,” which is a fine and dandy idea but he had a) “stupid smurf-eating grin on his face like he’s trying to stir up some controversy in class.” He seriously looked like Amy and I probably did after we put our mom’s makeup all over that one random dresser upstairs in our house. Like you know you did something wrong, but you sort of (or definitely, in his case) just to see what the reaction would be from everyone else.
2/5/09
5:20 pm: He just pronounced “Descartes” as “Diz-cart-ayes.” That’s the sign of an educated and hygienically clean man.
So yeah, my writings about this cat are becoming a little more and more anger-filled with each passing class period. We’ll see where this leads..
I’m not sure if I should do this, but what the frigg, the follwing is an email that he sent out to the class the other week:Howdy emerging system thinkers,
In addition to the Meadows piece, I have attached a supplemental reading for Tuesday by Wendell Berry entitled, Solving for Pattern; its short and provides another take on "systems thinking." It also relates to our in-class-working example of a system, and given the discussion in the forum, I thought you might appreciate an essay by Berry. So please check it out! For those of you interested in the sustainable agriculture reference I mentioned, please check out Berry, The Unsettling of America: culture and agriculture.
You will also find attached two images of the study area for our system example, a conventional corn-soybean farm. Our farm in question is outlined in blue. Take some time to examine the biophysical surroundings at the larger landscape and farm-level.
Note: our farmer acquired a couple adjacent farms during the late 1970s.
Again, for Tuesday's class, please do the following: 1. Individually - List the elements or “things” that would be found in this system based on your current knowledge: social, ecological, economical. Please refer to the Daniel Paper if needed. You can also download the slide presentation as a quicktime movie or download the file into iTunes and watch on your iPod!! Wow, isn't technology cool.
Have a great weekend.
Have fun and be safe,
Derric
Yeah. That’s for real. Mercifully, though, that class gets out at 5:45 and I basically bolt out, kill a panda with my bare hands, and then drink its blood in an attempt to atone for what I was just subjected to for the preceeding 75 minutes.
I head over to Blegen Hall for my last class of the day. I arrive over there right around 6:00 which gives me about 20 minutes to go buy myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from the café there, bust out one of the bananas that I stole from lunch, grab a paper, and just chill. I always like reading the “Dr. Date” section of the Minnesota Daily (which is the U of M’s paper). There’s never a time where my self-esteem isn’t raised after reading about all the crazy problems that people have in relation to their love lives. Just warms the heart like hot chocolate on Christmas morning.This final hurdle to leap is Political Science 3835: International Relations. This is actually a very interesting class. In theory. Like, the readings and such are super-intriguing, and I feel that if I had the motivation to, you know, read them, I’d learn a lot. Unfortunately, I don’t usually really have that ambition to get through a hundred or so pages of reading a week for just this class. Although, this is one of those times where I’m going to actually try and get myself into the material because I think it’s worth it in this case. Wait, who am I kidding? No, I'm not.Unfortunately, the prof's lectures don’t match up in the slightest with the readings in terms of legit-ness. He has a crazy monotonistic voice that can only remind someone of Ben Stein’s character from the major motion picture known as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” It’s weird because he’s clearly extremely knowledgeable in terms of the material at hand, but he has no passion at all in his voice. He seems like he’s interested in what he’s saying, but it doesn’t come out that way at all. Basically, for 2 ½ hours he just regurgitates a BUNCH of information into our mouths like we’re baby sparrows and he’s our mother. Although, I might actually be more prone to asking for the mushed up worm than what he’s tossing back at us.
Eventually for this class, we have to do a 40-60 minute group presentation on some international relations topic. The first group went last week, and it was ridiculously boring and dry. The prof said that he pretty much loved it. Thus, I know that I’m not going to take it seriously at all. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to make it a complete inside joke. A joke so inside that I’ll be the only person in the class who knows what’s going on. My current plan is to see how many High School Musical references I can throw into my speech. Yeah, I know. That’s pretty ridiculous, but meh, whatevs. I’m sure a few girls in the class will think something’s up, but I have no plans on telling anyone this within the class. I’m going to think the entire thing’s hysterical. I’m almost looking forward to this thing… You know, some of these jokes are just for me :-)Mercifully, this class gets out at 8:50 and it’s all smooth sailing from here. Why, you ask? Because it’s TACO TUESDAY!!! By far my favorite dinner-ness of the week! I head out of Blegen Hall off toward Centennial (or “Cen-Ten,” if you will) to meet up with my broheims. Typically the peeps besides myself = the aforementioned Geoff and Nick, Jack (another member of our group from last year), and Chris (a Cru compatriot and member of my B-stud last year and also a friend of Geoff’s from class). Solid group.I take full advantage of this night and basically pwn my body in a horrible manner. This is the only time of the week where I can say that I’m really unhealthy. I crush down 4 tacos and 3 or 4 pieces of pizza every time along with some milk, orange juice, and perhaps some other form of juice. And because I have my backpack with me, I go CRAZY jacking fruit. So far I’ve topped out at 11 pieces of questionably acquired pieces of fruta (which includes apples, oranges, and bananas). Not gonna lie, I’m pretty proud of that. And heck, I’ve paid for that food. Well… technically not yet, as I haven’t paid my bill yet, but I will within the next couple days, and that’s not the point. The point is that the dining hall is mine to pillage and ain’t nothing going to stop me, son! *does pushups due to being so pumped up*But yeah, the lot of us usually spend almost 2 hours down there consuming food and just living the dream. No doubt a phenomenal way to end what’s always a long friggin’ day. I typically end up getting back to my house at a little after 11:00, like 15 ½ hours after starting the whole mess. Nice. Then, if all goes well, I rock a little Bible reading, screw around on the comp for a while, hit the bed, and then hopefully hopefully hopefully get some adequate sleep.. No doubt that at this point the neighborhood is in fact awake, but even Superman sleeps sometimes. Wait... does he? ...Did I just compare myself to Superman? Wow, I AM a Carlson tool :p
Phil’s the man that I pretty accurately consider to be my brother. I’ve known him since junior high and the kid and I have done basically everything together. Super-stud. Andrew’s his younger brother, who I believe is 16 as of this writing. Solid, little whippersnapper, he be. For the horrendous class that is organized the evil Mrs. Giles, he had to job shadow someone; thus, he chose to do such a thing with his cousin, Nick, who works as some sort of a graphic designer for some company called “Fame” in Minneapolis. Ergo, Phil was to drive him up there on this day (Monday, January 5th), and since I pretty much fully and completely own the cities, Phil invited me to go with them.
Now obviously, Phil and I had to tear the young-in apart for doing such a thing. I mean, it’s bad enough that he’s actually reading a chick book such as that, but c’mon, the kid’s going to spend the day with Phil and me!?!? He’s going to learn sooooo much if he pays attention and contributes to the conversation because let’s be honest here, we two be studs with a lot of knowledge :-) Not to mention the fact that I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to join us in our sing-alongs in the car. C'mon, bramen noodles! 
But even given this style of his, as previously mentioned there were still TONS of cars that felt the need to suck at driving. Commence driving awesomeness and comedic Phil genius. I wish I wish I wish that I could do justice to the man’s rants as we drove down the highway behind all these slow-smurf cars. I can only say that there were many references to his wondering of where his rocket launcher was as he brilliantly diatribed about how horrendous the drivers were.
After this craziness had taken place and our nerves settled again, I took a little peak at the Mapquest directions Phil had procured for this day. I stared blankly at steps 4-7 on the page. We were to exit off highway 212 onto highway 41, merge onto highway 312, 312 was to become highway 5, and then 5 was to turn into highway 212. Now let’s just think about this for a second. Why the SMURF would we have to exit off 212 just to eventually get back on it? Now if there’s anyone reading this who’s not familiar with 212 (there’s not, but you know, just in case), I should state that this crap isn’t necessary for to remain on this highway. It just continues into the cities where it eventually turns into 62. Thus, what was up with these pointless activities, I thought.
All three of us knew that what we were to do here was what we were going to leave behind, so we booked it for this elusive building. Rounding corners and crushing down the streets like the family from Home Alone running through the airport, we power walked our way to Fame. We paused along our way in front of some random building that looked like it would lead to the other side of the street and give us a brief reprieve from the cold. Phil opened the door to the edifice like a champ and we entered in a manner eerily reminiscent of Elly’s opening of the puerta to the power room dealy in Jurassic Park. Except we weren’t being chased by velociraptors, but rather time. We continued pressing forth in a confused but simultaneously knowing fashion through this building, bounding up and down stairs, owning the turns, and ignoring all accepted methods of indoor movement. It wasn’t long before our determined selves exited the construction, and we found our-said-selves back on the streets. Which, coincidentally, is where we’re from, so it was all hood.
We quickly realized that this roundabout adventure indoors literally took only like 15 feet off our journey. Nice. With little time to spare, we booked it down the street only to be briefly thwarted by a stoplight and a don’t-walk sign. Showing little regard for humanity, Andrew crossed anyway. Phil and I screamed behind the man, “NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Andrew, what are you doing?!?!?!” Thankfully, he was able to cheat death as safely crossed, and the light changed shortly thereafter. Phil and I resumed our pursuit of Fame as well. 
The building was close at this point; we could see the door. Entering through the revolving doors, we found ourselves inside. Whipping out his phone like a player, Phil placed the call to his and Andrew’s cousin, Nick. We received confirmation from this person that we should indeed walk through the doors that said “Fame” on/near them that were located right next to the original revolving doors. After brief thwartation by this door, we finagled our way inside. Despues de brief awkward conversation with the secretary, Nick walked down the hall to greet us. We all exchanged momentary greetings before Phil and I recalled that we had little time left on the parking meter.
Of course we couldn’t leave before running down the time to darn-near zero, because hey, we (and by “we” I mean Phil) paid for that space, and dag-nabbed if we were going to let the man have our (his) money. Eventually, the time ran down, and Phil and I rolled out of the spot and toward my old stomping grounds in the University of Minnesota. Son.
Oddly enough, we stumbled upon the same route to campus that we had accidentally taken a couple weeks prior when we had been in the cities for a different purpose. Coincidence? I think not. Relevant? I also think not.
We made a brief stop at the house that is to be my home for this coming semester in an attempt to just take a look around and to see what I was going to need to bring. Unfortunately, the doors were all locked and there were no real signs of life going on there. Sadsies. But whatevs, I’ll sort it out when I move in in a couple days.
Thus, Phil and I had a lot of time to kill on our hands, so we just started walking into random buildings and looking around in an attempt to kill time and to get out of the cold. Wait. I know what you’re thinking. Did we just come to the cities with no plan in mind? Do we just have to waste several hours until Andrew gets done job shadowing? Claro que no, Amy! 
I had talked to my awesome friend Laura the previous day, and we’d decided to rock some lunch together. Ergo, I was waiting until a more legit time to call her and get everything set up. After a fair bit of just literally and figuratively chilling around campus, I decided the time was right to make the call.
He said that I could just go and talk to anyone of the three other people working RIGHT NEXT TO HIM to get my stuff done. I looked back at him questioningly. He had all the equipment and such in front of him that everyone else did, so I was a bit befuddled by this pot addict’s (alleged) desire to not do any work, so I re-asked the question.
I was a little worried about the fact that the camera might steal my soul, but I pushed through it and without giving a second thought to my appearance, I took a couple steps back and let her snap the photo. Mistake. Now let’s think about this for a second. I was wearing my big friggin’ blue parka and a brown hooded sweatshirt. So that’s a fail straight up as the hood looks ridiculous all tapered off awkwardly to the side. And since it was crazy-cold outside, I had had my hood up, so my hair was all messed (and not in that legit, nicely tussled way that it usually is :p but more so like grim death). AND my nose was red due to said cold as well. Of course I didn’t smile either as I usually don’t for official cards as they’re supposed to taken in a serious manner. All of this added up to a ridiculously stupid looking picture where I look like a complete tool.
After finishing this process, Phil and I walked over to the Weisman Art Museum only to be find it to be closed as well. Friggin’ Mondays, so we headed back to the car on the other side of campus. We arrived back at the Corsica again with six minutes to spare. Money in the meter. Literally. After waiting for that to rundown, we decided to head over to Burger King to rep a quick sandwich as a basic pregame for our lunch with Laura as both of us we’re getting pretty hungry and it was a little after noon.
That’s just tight. My man Phil helping a brother out. Who knew that Mr. Honzay was, in fact, black? But moving on back to the aforementioned spicy chicken crisp; now I’m not ready to say that it’s on the same level as a McDonald’s double cheeseburger, but those things are pretty darn good. And heck, for only dollar? I’m down. They’re pretty much disgusting, though, to think about eating. Not that any fast food isn’t, but anything with mayo in it just brings a disgusted look to my face for health reasons. Ugh, it’s just like pure fat… and mix that with lettuce and it’s just gross looking and feeling. Not to mention the innuendo with it. But whatevs, I demolished it.
After we’d finished the consumption of said sandwiches, it was about 1:00, but we both knew that Laura wouldn’t be on time. This is due to the following logical thought. Now stay with me on this one:
At this point, a girl with FANTASTIC hair walked up to us and asked if I was Aaron. For some reason I was taken aback by this and wondered how this girl knew who I was before it hit me. This was Heather. We three were all shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries when Laura emerged from behind me. I smiled and gave her a hug. Fun.
The four of us headed to the downstairs portion of the restaurant for to hang and wait for our food and, I suppose, to eventually consume said food. Everything seemed to be going quite well. Laura and I spent most of the time talking to each other, and Phil seemed to be rocking some solid convo with Heather. Of course, there was fantastic conversation all around as well. Soon enough, our food came and we started going to town on it.
It wasn’t too long after this that Andrew texted Phil and told him that he needed to be picked up at like 3:00, so sadly we had to cut our awesome hanging out short to go pick up that whippersnapper.
Wow, that was good to get out of my system. Gosh, what a terrible excuse for a film. Anyways, Phil and I found our same parking spot from before and headed for Fame. 15 minutes, baby. T’was much easier to get ourselves where we needed to be this time as we avoided that directional hazard of a building that we utilized poorly before. We got ourselves inside and did our best to make charming conversation with the secretary while we waited for Andrew to emerge. I must say, mission accomplish on that front :-) The crazy kid walked out relatively shortly after our arrival and we headed back out to the car.
We told him what our plan was in going back to hang with Laura and Heather; he seemed to have no qualms about such a thing. We found the car without problem (obviously) and took a little peak at the meter. Long story short, let’s just say that once again, we had six minutes left. Score! However, this time we felt that we didn’t have much time to waste as we needed to go meet our peeps. Laura actually called me in our drive back to see if we were coming or not as they didn’t want to overstay at the coffee shop. I told her that we were, and that they should defs wait for us. Money.
We headed into Espresso Expose and picked up where we left off… except with Andrew this time. The kid busted out his sketch book and started going to town on making drawings and the like while Phil, Laura, Heather, and I continued rocking our conversation in a manner much akin to the way that we did it earlier. The whole thing seemed to go quite smooth and was definitely enjoyable before I eventually called my broheim and suitemate from last year, Geoff. I’d talked to him the previous day and said that we should hang. I’d actually almost forgotten until Laura reminded me while we were chilling. I told the kid that I could be at his place relatively shortly. Thus, we agreed to meet up, so it was time for this party to separate.
And just to be clear on this, I know that this pic is from "Night to Remember," and not "Just Walk Away," so don't be trying to pull that on me :-)
We abandoned this parallel parking idea and drove a small jaunt away to an area that was predominately free of cars. Phil made an easy park, and we got out to assess the situation. Now I’m not going to lie you, guys, I don’t know much about cars. Like, I know how the basics of what’s under the hood (ha!), how an engine works, and other remedial crap like that, but really I don’t know jack shiz, so I just kind of stood around and talked to Andrew while Phil took a look at the coche. He placed a couple phone calls, but obviously no one could really give him a legitimate assessment of what was wrong with his car.
After doing up a couple songs, Phil called Geoff and told him to come help him get in. Geoff quickly changed the channel on the TV to what’s been aptly deemed as “stalker-vision” just to get a view of what was going on. Now this stalker-vision of which I speak is basically a closed circuit view of the cameras that film the foyer leading into the building, the game room, the weight room, and some other room. Yeah, a little creepy, not going to lie. “Ah, I see you!,” exclaimed Geoff as he and I turned to leave the room and get my bro.
We got back to Phil’s car and started that hummer up. It seemed to be making a high-pitched wheezing sort of sound which intensified every time he turned the wheel. Of course, this isn’t even mentioning the smoke emanating from the car nor the weird smell. Nice. But since we three are bad bad men, we decided to basically ignore all these things like they were stoplights in Minneapolis (retroactive burn, Phil!).
We drove around for a while just to test the little beast out (while that little girl Andrew read Twilight), but we still had no real answer of what was wrong with it, several ideas but nothing solid, so we bounced back to small town Minnesota. There really didn’t seem to be any problems with the car outside of what was mentioned, so everything seemed decent. Except for the lights. They were ridiculously dim. And getting dimmer as we traveled on. Alternator, perhaps, thought Phil. Fantastic.
Although, it’s time to complain about this establishment for a bit, my friends. I’d read whilst in Spain that the company was thinking about taking the double cheeseburger off the dollar menu because they were apparently somehow losing money on it even though it was by FAR the most popular item in the place. At the time I had no access to said double cheeseburgers as they apparently don’t exist in Europe, so I just hoped for the best and discarded the information for the time. It had been a couple weeks prior (at the same McDonald’s, no less) when I learned that this craziness had in fact occurred. 
So yeah, they put this “McDouble” on the dollar menu in place of the classic double cheeseburger. Get the Smurf out of here, McDonald’s! How can you possibly lose money on that thing? And don’t even try to explain this to me in economic terms that make sense, because con-flabbit it doesn’t even matter. And Smurfed it the McDouble’s anywhere near the same as the double cheeseburger. “It’s the same, but it only has one piece of cheese.”?!?!?! IT’S NOT THE SAME! GET OUT OF MY RESTAURANT!!! I could’ve taken a double cheeseburger, thrown it in the air, and it would’ve turned into sunshine! The McDouble, while good, would do NO SUCH THING if tossed against the flow gravity! I want my own dream so bad I’m gonna scream! Sorry, another HSM reference, it just calms me down.
My apologies for my inability to smurfify this pic... Sort of...