Goooood morning, internet family! I'm Ty Pennington from Extreme Home Makeover: Blog Edition. Kidding. I'm still Stuart, senior chemistry major from Metairie, LA. I haven't blogged in a while because of vacation and the hustle and bustle of the start of school. A lot has been happening around Southern Miss, and it's been quite an experience just taking in these first few weeks of the school year. I think a good way to kick off Blog Season Fall '09 is to give you a rundown of what I've been doing these past few weeks.
Austin, TX - austinwassoawesomeiwanttogobackassoonaspossibleplease
Home/Breakation - I went home for a few days to visit the family and recuperate for the beginning of the year. It was very relaxing; I got to make some new songs and also study several vocabulary words for the GRE. I was going to write one down here to prove to you how well I studied but every time I think of a GRE word I get sick and have visions of dictionaries chasing me down the street. Kidding. I learned the word "avuncular." It means something along the lines of "of or relating to an uncle." Why the English language chose to have a word that means that is beyond me.
GEWW - As soon as I moved back to Hattiesburg, I hit the ground running with Golden Eagle Welcome Week Crew Training. Golden Eagle Welcome Week is Southern Miss' take on orientation week. It's a week of fun activities immediately preceding the first day of class that involves fun activities and spirit-building events to help introduce new freshman and transfer students to life at Southern Miss. For the last three years, I have been a small group leader at GEWW and have loved every minute of it. Traditionally, the coolest activity of GEWW is the painting of the Eagle Walk. The Eagle Walk is the drive under the east side of our stadium, The Rock, where the football team and band enter the stadium two hours before every home football game. The Eagle Walk is painted gold at every GEWW by teams of new students competing to see who can paint the fastest. I still have the shirt I was wearing when I painted the Eagle Walk four years ago. It's pretty gross now, and it's more of a brown color than gold. My roommates said the pants I was wearing were too gross so I had to throw those away. C'est la vie. Anyway, my small group this year made me very proud, as proud as 25 freshmen covering themselves in gold latex paint could make me. Here's a picture of Zach, Allie and me after the Eagle Walk. They were two of the very spirited painters in my small group:
Other Stuff That Happened Before Classes Started - While being on GEWW Crew took up a whole lot of time, I also really enjoyed the few days before classes started because it gave me a few chances to catch up with everyone who had been gone all summer. Most of my fraternity was back in town and seeing all of them was a good relief. Also, my roommate decided not to transfer abroad and moved back into ye olde apartment. I also had the chance to say goodbye to Liz, who's studying in Italy for the semester. Bye, Liz. Lastly, I've been hired as a photographer for the Office of Admissions to take pictures for all the cool brochures and mail outs that are sent to prospective students. It's exciting, but I'm still learning to use the camera. We'll see how it goes.
The First Week of Class/Syllabus Days - The first day of class is SUPPOSED to be called "syllabus day" which is a free day where the professor hands out a syllabus and lets all the students go early. Maybe by chance or bad karma, I've had about one or two syllabus days in 7 semesters at Southern Miss. Almost all of my classes have lectured on the first day. For this reason, I don't believe in Syllabus Day. It's malarkey. Anywho, the first week of class was exciting. I changed my schedule around a little bit, picked up Multi-Variable Calculus, and I am still looking for another class to schedule. Maybe Beginner Arabic? Maybe? Who knows? We had our Honors College welcome picnic, and that was fun. Looks like this year I'll be heading up the return of the "Sexiest Dork" competition. I won't go into too much detail as to what that entails, but I will say that I was named "Sexiest Dork 2007." Believe it.
Construction - The times, they are a-changing. Southern Miss has about a hundred thousand construction projects (kidding) going on right now, all to make this campus a much better place. A new residential complex, Century Park, is going in north of 4th Street, and a new gateway for the front of campus was just started a few days ago. Also, the old dining facility in the middle of campus, J.B. George Commons, is in the process of being torn down and replaced with green space (and according to Dr. Saunders, a new amphitheatre!). My friend Eli and I were lucky enough to witness a large portion of the "Old Commons" being torn down in front of our very eyes. Armed with my new Admissions camera, I was lucky enough to capture a few shots of the monumental demolition of a campus building:
Stuff That Hasn't Happened Yet - Well I have a lot to blog about, but I can't because none of it has happened yet. Sorry. I built a time machine at my apartment, but it only moves forward in time at normal speed so it's really just a big cardboard box. I can't blog about things that haven't happened yet. Thanks for that joke, Demetri Martin. Until next time, keep it classy Hattiesburg.
