The day started off fine. I put the last of my stuff in storage, watched a couple episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist (which is pretty cool, but not as cool as Avatar) and then got to the airport nice and early. I helped myself to a burger at Champp’s (not fine dining, but not a bad place for lunch) and then made my way to the gate.

That’s when things started to go wrong. Our flight was delayed by about an hour, and as I had a connection to make out of Denver that is a very bad thing for me. So I started panicking, and dreading the possibility of spending a night in Denver (I’ve got relatives there, but it still feels like I’ve fallen short), and I think I might have gone through the five stages of grief while waiting… or maybe I’m just exaggerating due to lack of sleep. Whatever.

But then, a light in the darkness appeared; the people at the front desk said that the flight to Portland would be held so people making a connection could get on. With that weight lifted off my shoulders, I was a much more cheery and personable person, and chatted up a few of the other passengers who were going through the same plight as me (some with less success).

This also marks the first time I have ever seen someone really flip out at the people at the desk. So, this couple was going to be on the flight to Denver, but due to the delays they decided to reroute their plans. There was a snafu and they would have gotten separated, and by the time they tried to get it changed the airline (Frontier, by the way) had closed everything down. The guy did not take this very well, and after some shouting he and his wife stormed off. It was both amusing and terrifying at the same time… kind of like a car crash.

Anyway, I got onto the flight to Denver, and to my further luck The LEGO Movie was one of the options for in-flight entertainment. So…

Everything is Awesome! /Everything is cool when you’re part of the team! / Everything is Awesome! / When you’re living your dreams!

During the movie, our plane happened to pass over a thunderstorm. I consider myself a religious person, and seeing a thunderstorm in general is enough to put the fear of God in you. Seeing it from above is a whole different level of awe-inspiring, and I could not help but feel that if God wanted, He could have struck us down with ease.

But God is on our side, and we can’t lose because we are very pretty.

And I think He was on my side. When we landed, I had less than five or so minutes to run down to my next plane. When I got there I was out of breath, my heart was beating really fast, and I couldn’t feel my legs. To top it off, I got stuck next to a 13 month old baby, although by the time I wrote this he seemed very peaceful. Go him.

And my nemesis the tray table strikes again. Frontier does have tray tables that slide out, but they don’t slide out enough and the actual tray is small (I can’t tell if it’s Delta small, but it’s still pretty darn small). My computer has no traction, so as I write this I have to work to make sure that it doesn’t slide around too much (no small task as we hit a bad batch of turbulence when I wrote this).

I shouldn’t complain about tray tables or turbulence or delays (or even babies for that matter). I’m going home, and I’ll be able to sleep in my own bed for the next three months. I’ve still got some work to do in general, but for now I don’t have to worry about the pressures of Wabash. I have to say that I look forward to having less pressure placed upon me. I need it, and I think all the students and faculty at Wabash need it.

So for real this time, this is my last blog post. Thank you for listening to my rants, and I thank Wabash for the opportunity to express these rants.

Anyway, Saturday was a great day. I’ve been a bit stressed because of some things going on in class that I won’t bore you with, so Friday night and Saturday were great for stress relieving. Friday was good because I found out that The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is on Netflix, so that helped take my mind off things for a bit. Saturday was great because Dorkstock.

Like Dorkapalooza, Dorkstock is a larger scale event that the Dork Club participates in at the end of the year just before finals. It’s a time where we can come together and play a bunch of games to relax and not worry about finals, even if only for a few hours.

Anyway, the day began around 12. I spent a bit of time observing and eating some food before actually playing a game. Unfortunately, no one else brought 40K stuff, so my Space Marines did not get a chance to do anything last night. However, I did look to other games to pass the time, and I did play a few good games (didn’t win most of them, but that’s not the point).

Probably the game I played the most last night was Formula D. I think I mentioned this game in a previous blog post, but as a refresher Formula D is a game where you control a race car and race other people around the track. I seem to be a bit too cautious of a driver, as downshifting into lower gears always sees me get into the back of the pack (or even causes me to crash… it happened). And somehow Professor Morillo’s daughter is a god at this game, pulling so far ahead that the others can never keep up. It’s a pretty fun game, and very amusing to watch people crash (but then when isn’t it?)

As the night went on, I got a chance to play another game I have been looking forward to playing for some time (some time being when we got it a few months ago). That game is Ikusa, a Risk/Axis and Allies hybrid where you command one of five warring factions in Feudal Japan. The goal is to kill off the other players’ Daimyos and conquer Japan, and you do that by building armies of samurai and peasant spearmen and gunmen, and hiring the occasional ninja to go assassinate someone. My forces were somewhat scattered across the board, but I did manage to get a nice concentration of power in the northeast. From there, I moved south and west, and on my last turn I managed to kill two Daimyos and secure a nice chunk of land. We called it quits soon after on account of some of the other guys wanting to play Diplomacy (which I highlighted in an earlier blog post) so I, Professor Morillo, his daughter, Professor Porter and one of my Brothers sat down for one last Formula D race. I came in third on account of blowing up my Brother with mind bullets (actually an engine malfunction, but mind bullets sounds cooler) and Professor Porter hitting the wreckage and crashing, and once again Morillo’s daughter swept the race.

Things were dying down, and as some of the others left I sat down for a small scale Star Wars RPG. Our mission was to infiltrate an Imperial base for a little sabotage, and things went well until one of the Imperials called for backup on account of there being dead bodies in the trash compactor (long story). Our group quickly got involved in a firefight with Stormtroopers and Imperial soldiers, and I managed to take out a few with only a few small wounds to worry about (although there was some cheating; due to lack of planning on behalf of one of my squadmates I got shot, a lot, and should have died had Porter not said that I was merely “stunned and ducking behind cover). By then it was bout midnight, so I decided to call it a day and go home to get some sleep.

I am incredibly thankful that Wabash has groups like the Dork Club. Without it, I probably would have been panicking with stress for the past few days, not to mention a bit more grouchy over the course of the school year due to a lack of some way for me to relieve my stress. And I’m sure this isn’t exclusive to Dork Club; there are other groups here at Wabash that can be just as effective at relieving stress, and I encourage all incoming student to get involved in something they love to do so that they can relax for a few hours and not have to worry about classes and papers.

Also, as this may very well be my last blog post of the year (I say may because the time slots are a little weird. I might give you another travel log), I want to thank you all who have read my blog and followed my Wabash journey. I might not know most of you, but I feel happy that I have had the chance to reach out to others and show them just what Wabash has to offer.

Well, Finals Week is upon us. Yay.

I talked about Finals Week last year just before break, so I won’t rehash my feelings about Finals and tests. I have a few papers to write, some work to compile, and a Latin Test either Monday or Thursday. Either way, I am going to be busy until next Friday.

Really, I’ve been busy a lot. I spend quite a bit of time doing homework and writing papers (and these blogs). And really, I think that has made me a more effective person. I’m not the somewhat introverted, uncertain loner type who came to Wabash last August. I am more confident and well learned, and I feel that I am more open to seeing the big picture than just being another apathetic citizen. The year did have its rough patches, but all in all I think it was a pretty good start to my Wabash career.

And, of course, I loved telling you guys about my time here. It’s nice to have a connection to the outside world, and I hope that I can continue to tell you guys about whatever happens here at Wabash.

But this isn’t goodbye; there’s still one more blog post that I have to write. My last Dork Club event of the year, and let me tell you it is going to be great.

Check in Saturday when I talk about my experiences at Dorkstock.

This probably the last “normal weekend” of the semester and I could not have started it better than attending Casino Night with my buddies Friday night. It was not real money but you could win real prizes such as a TV or iPad. Though I did not win, hanging out with my buddies was nice. Even better that Butler University’s dance team worked all the tables. I might have enjoyed that part more than the fake gambling; no I am sure that I enjoyed it more. After that I went straight to bed because of my all-nighter the previous night.

For my birthday on Saturday I got to do some yard work for the Glee Club director Dr.Bowen. After a couple hours of that I attended Taylor Neal’s (who was also celebrating his birthday) Senior Composition Recital. Words will always fall short to convey the beauty of any composed piece of art. Having said that, I wish you could have listened to the compositions he shared. That experience reassured my decision to be Music major and I am fortunate to have attended. I am eager to begin my Independent Study with Dr.Hulen Junior year where I will begin to apply the music theory to composition.

Stage Lights is a wonderful play that catches the spirit of the Little Tramp films. The Tramp is a rather innocent, happy go lucky type who always tries to help those that need help (even if doing nothing would help him in the long run), and while he is subjected to bouts of physical comedy the real strength is that the actor is able to pull off plenty of deep emotions without saying anything, which is a beautiful thing to see because most people take the physicality of acting for granted when really, physical action is what makes acting work. If it was just a whole bunch of people standing around doing nothing while saying their lines, unless it was labeled as Post-Modernism it’s not going to be very good (looking at you Shyamalan and The Last Airbender). And a lack of dialogue means that the actors and writers can be rather clever in what they want to do onstage, and a nice amount of physical comedy helps a lot.

So if you haven’t seen Stage Lights yet, go see it tonight before it closes. If you don’t live in Indiana and thus aren’t able to see it… well, you missed out on a great thing.

Speaking of things you missed out on, today was the day of the Classics Club’s Suovetaurilia… Have no idea what that is? Well, a Suovetaurilia was a Roman sacrifice to the gods where they would kill and then roast a pig, a sheep, and a bull. Since we can’t do the whole killing part, we just had the roast along with a bunch of other traditional Greek and Roman dishes that the Classics Club prepared. They even did a reading from The Iliad, a mock sacrifice involving rolled up meat and a stuffed tiger, and a Roman/Greek prayer asking Ios to bless the meal and give Wabash victory (specifically over DePauw, but we were doing pretty good in the baseball game when I left). The Greek and Roman gods probably don’t exist, but it is cool to see that old traditions and ideas are being honored, and it’s fun to spend some time eating meat and watching baseball. Sadly, unlike Stage Lights a Suovetaurilia can’t be a repeat performance unless you want to spend a lot of money on meat and other such items, and even if you did have money then you’d have to be careful to make sure that it stays fresh and doesn’t get stale (meat is good, but too much meat is not).

I was probably more excited then anyone I know about this play. Being the huge silent film and Charlie Chaplin fan that I am, I was not let done by this play. I am very excited for all those who participated in the play because they look like they had lots of fun.

I find it quite amusing that you will see a guy who is in your advisory be on stage and play a giant gorilla. It might be the fact that it is a small school but I do not think it is possible at large schools to be part of a production or an ensemble unless you are majoring in a fine art. That’s what makes Wabash great. You might even be a Spanish History double major and be part of one of the theatre productions or be on the football team and the Glee Club. Yeah maybe Wabash does not have as much as bigger schools to offer, but what we do have you can be part of no matter what you are majoring in. Small school means there is room to get around and try a bit of everything. I have never acted before and I am more than excited for my intro to acting class next semester and I am a Music Spanish double major. You can do a lot at Wabash no and it won’t really matter what your interest is.

I think my thoughts about specialization today came from a Youtube ad, of all things. I was watching something and an ad came up for people who had been hit by semi trucks, of all things, telling them where they could get an attorney to sue the company of those trucks. Issues of when and when not to sue aside, it seems rather odd that they would have a law firm that specializes in semi truck accidents only and… well, not much else. Sure, an argument can be made that there are claims and avenues that might not be seen by any other attorney, but you think that the law schools that these men and women attended might do some basic training in these various specifications so that if a specialist can’t be found, a person still has someone that can defend them.

Then that got me thinking; if someone does all their studying for a specific field, what then? What if there are not many jobs in that particular field when they leave college, or what if the job they’re applying for asks for a skill that they don’t have? I’m sure this problem is nowhere as widespread as I think it is, but still, it could happen, and if it does then all the skills and what have you that the person has developed suddenly aren’t that useful anymore.

Wabash prevents that from happening by teaching you a variety of skills that can be applied across multiple job sectors. The multiple courses can and are often tied in with one another, and can help greatly when dealing with different topics (knowledge of history and good writing are said to be very useful in business). I try to keep my skills and interests varied so that I never get bored, and if and when the time calls for it I can better react to a situation presented to me. Flexibility is a very good thing, and the flexible people like those here are Wabash will be the ones to get ahead of the pure specialists.

So my advice to any incoming Freshmen that happen to read this (there must be at least one out there), take a variety of courses. Mix things up, develop some new skills that you might need in the future. Who knows, maybe you’ll find your “calling” in something you didn’t even know you liked.

I can barely wrap my head around the idea that there is only two weeks of freshman year classes left. Not really an “idea” but the truth. What I also find hard to believe is spending my 19th birthday away from my parents and brothers.

This will be my first birthday not at home with my mom and dad. It is not easy being away from home and though no one can replace a mother and father’s love, the friends I have made at Wabash make it a bit easier to deal with such things. At Wabash we are one team and we are one family. We stand next to each other trough thick and thin. It is true that you will make your best friends in college, at Wabash you make more than friends. The fact that there are no girls in classes helps form stronger bonds with your Wabash brothers. It is not easy to explain how these bonds are formed or strong they really are, but they are there and definitely tenacious.

This social aspect is definitely the green light and deciding factor of why I am coming back for another year. Going to college and graduating with a diploma means nothing if you did not enjoy the stay and ride to get there. Wabash is definitely a choice I would make over and over again. Coming back to Wabash for next year is just as important if not more important. Go to Wabash, you will not forget it.

So, that’s what I did. Enjoy.

My day began with waking up at 8:00 in order to get ready for Latin class. I do not claim to be a morning person, and I did have a picture of me after I had woken up, but I doubt many of you would want to see a picture of me having just woken up. Anyway, after a quick shower and getting dressed, I gathered my things, made my way downstairs and made myself some tea.

I’d call myself reliant on caffeine, but that might be exaggerating a bit. Most of the time I am able to get a good night’s sleep, but every now and then I need just a little kick to get through the day. Enter tea; tea is sweeter and easier to prepare than coffee, so for a guy on the go it’s handy for just that extra push. Also, I think it probably constitutes as Heresy for me to drink coffee out of a Doctor Who mug.

Anyway, after preparing my tea I made my way to Latin Class. Latin is much like any other language class, except you don’t have to speak it as much, you get to trade a lot of dirty Latin jokes. Not that that’s the only selling point; you get to study a language that would not be offered regularly, and thus you are exposed to a plethora of different options once it comes time to choose new courses (Classics being a big example).

Next on my list of classes to go to was History. I like history. I’ve liked history since I was in elementary school, and Wabash has a good history course. We’ve been talking about network connections in the modern age, and all the ups and downs and misinterpretations that come along with that (read: a lot). You’re not going over the same facts over and over again; you are seeing how older philosophies still have an impact, and developing a view on how the world functions with all the networks and hierarchies competing with one another. Also, Morillo is funny, and I do feel engaged in the conversation as it goes along.

Before I go further, this was the weather today:

Anyway, the first half of the day ended with Enduring Questions, which you may remember from my blog post yesterday. It’s kind of like a philosophy class, but not really because it’s called “Enduring Questions”… and that’s a really lame justification. Today we talked about whether or not Tim O’Brian was “cowardly” for not standing against the Vietnam Draft, which he opposed, or at the very least running to Canada when he is drafted. Personally I think no, it wasn’t cowardly in the sense that Gandhi wasn’t a coward when he did his passive protests of English rule. I like that class because it gets me thinking about things, and you should think about things to otherwise you’re just going to be some corporate yes man for the rest of your life… or go into politics, which is probably not that great either.

After that I went back to the house to have lunch. It’s not high class dining, but it’s better than Sparks Center. After that I had two hours to relax, catch up on my emails (which I recommend for incoming students: always check your emails as often as you can), and get ready for Poly-Sci. Political Science (at least the class I’m taking) is a bit more lecture heavy than some of the other classes I’m in, which are more discussion based. Not to say that’s a bad thing; everyone teaches differently, and some courses require different styles. Anyway, this particular course is on American government, all the judicial and legislative know how and political mongering, but in a somewhat good way because the U.S. really isn’t that bad, all things considered. It gives you a bit of perspective on the world, and if you don’t want to be some generic yes man then perspective is very valuable.

We got let out of Poly-Sci early today, so I came back and started work on this blog. It’s a weekend, so we don’t have regular meal service here at the fraternity, but I’m good at improvising when it comes to food.

That’s an average day for me here at Wabash. Wake up, go to class, write. Things will change next semester, no doubt about that, but that’s what my Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays are like… Honestly, I can’t complain. I get to go to a great school and learn stuff, what’s not to love?

Today I was interviewed to be  an orientation leader in August for incoming freshman and a question I was asked was “What study abroad opportunities are available?” among other questions. This was an easy one for because I know of upper clansmen who are in the process of applying and others that are currently studying abroad. Study abroad opportunities are very common and you can take advantage of them as a freshman. There are immersion trips where you can travel to Germany, Cuba, Washington DC during Thanksgiving break or spring break. These trips area available depending on what classes you take and when you take them. There is also your typical semester long study abroad programs that you apply for as sophomores and then travel as second or first juniors.

What is great about this is that you could even study in Ecuador as a freshman like I am. I get to be in Ecuador for a month, study about Ecuadorian culture, have the music director teach us Ecuadorian songs, and then travel with the Glee Club and sing in churches and schools. The best part is that the first two weeks of this trip are free except for lunch and the next two weeks are a very low subsidized amount.

The point is, traveling opportunities at Wabash are plentiful but to get to them you are going to have to look for them. Opportunities are not going to seek you out, you must find them, apply and want them.