September 2009 Archives

It's really quite sunny outside, but yesterday as I was leaving the test center it was a downpour. In literature, that's called a pathetic fallacy, when weather imitates mood. The weather was imitating my mood yesterday. I missed my quantitative score on the GRE by 20 points. Oh well. I'm taking it again in two weeks. By then I should be able to get my 20 points and get into all the graduate schools ever. Probably not all of them. But at least the ones I want to get into.

Anywho, school is coming along nicely. I'd say that I'm having a nice senior year. Anyone remember turtle angel? The other day I was doing some physics homework at Sam and Brad's apartment, and turtle angel tried to help out. It didn't work so well:

Oh well. Turns out angels riding turtles don't really know that much about different interpretations of Newton's second law.

I had a fun night last night, especially in relation to how disappointing the earlier results of my GRE had been. It was my roommate's 22nd birthday, and he really wanted to play laser tag with some friends at our local laser tag arena, Laser Mania. It's only a few minutes down Hardy Street from campus. It's a pretty cool thing to do in Hattiesburg. Stephen (roommate) didn't get out of rehearsal until late so we only got to play two games, but it was still fun. Only drawback, we had 7 people so the first game was uneven teams, but we played free for all the second game. I grew up playing laser tag, so I take it very seriously. I got second place in both games, but I think it's because Stephen got first and they rigged his scores for his birthday. When I look back at my life, the only thing I'm confident I'm good at is laser tag. Kidding. I'm not really that good at it.

If you've been reading the other blogs (Kimberly's), you may have heard about Eaglepalooza. And you may have heard who may be coming this year. And you may hear about me counting down the hours until this glorious event. The artist who may or may not but most likely will be coming to Eaglepalooza this year (Girl Talk) is one of my favorites. You may remember in my previous blogs that I've spent the past few months learning to sample music and make "mash-ups" of various songs on my computer. My main inspiration for this endeavor has been Girl Talk. I'd like to post a song a week until Eaglepalooza that I myself have put together in honor of the great Greg Gillis, but for a variety of legal reasons I don't want to host any of my mash-ups on the university website. I will, however, let you listen to a little song I've been working on in between school work and studying for the GRE. It's got some song samples but also a lot of synthesizer instruments I've put together on my computer. It still needs a lot of work and some vocals: Stay Stay Stay.mp3

That's all for this week. Hope to see you soon.

Hello there. I think I mentioned this before, but I'm taking the GRE a week from today. The GRE is one of the most important tests of my life (get the GRE in the title?). One good thing that has sprung from my incessant studying of the GRE is that it has given me yet another excuse to sit at coffee shops and drink coffee. A recent addition to the coffee culture in Hattiesburg is The Depot, located in Historic Downtown Hattiesburg across from the train station. It's a pretty awesome place. It's got a cheap bottomless cup of coffee, nice white tablecloths and best of all, a cool loft with couches and old books. I guess it's becoming sort of a tradition among a few friends and acquaintances to go down to The Depot on early Sunday afternoons. This past Sunday I brought my Admissions camera to take some photos, but it was rainy outside so I didn't get too many shots.  However, this one of Zoe reading pretty accurately describes the mood of the upstairs loft:

In between studying and drinking black coffee, I managed to find time this weekend to bring my camera to the Thirsty Hippo, an eclectic music venue downtown, to see Brass Bed, a band I always enjoy from Lafayette, LA. I got some cooool shots. It was also my first time taking pictures at the Hippo, which is fairly dark inside, so it was quite difficult. The Hippo is mostly decorated with Christmas and oddly colored lights and has a really nice outside courtyard. I go to the Hippo often, as it's one of the music venues in town that hosts music that fits my tastes. Here's an okay picture of Brass Bed:

A few things you can see in the above picture: Christmas lights, outside patio, awesome lap steel guitarist on the right, lead singer in the front and last but not least, a cool drummer on the left. Not pictured are the bass player and keyboardist. My friend Molly has a big crush on the drummer and couldn't attend but asked me to wink at him for her. I didn't wink at the drummer, but I still had lots of fun. The Thirsty Hippo is a pretty cool place.

Hey there, internet family. For a number of reasons, I am holding a brief moment of silence for my free time.

Thank you for your patience. It's been a crazy, crazy, crazy semester so far. In the words of K-Ci and JoJo, I'm going crazy crazy crazy just thinking about all the work I have to do. Actually, K-Ci and JoJo didn't really say that, but you might be able to imagine how it would go if they had. I've got several meetings every day, and I just signed up to take the GRE in a few weeks so now I'm in permanent study mode. I really haven't run out of free time, but it's more dramatic if I say so.

While I have gotten much busier, the levels of fun within my business has increased as well. Last week was our first home football game, so that meant it's time once again for Friday Night at the Fountain and tailgating in the District, which are two of my favorite things about football season. Friday Night at the Fountain is a free concert and pep rally held at the front of campus on the Friday night before every home football game. It's a great, free tradition I love especially because of my love of live music. This past week we had SMAASH, who won the Battle of the Bands last spring, which earned them the right to play first at Eaglepalooza. Eaglepalooza is the final Friday Night at the Fountain and is held on Main Street in Historic Downtown Hattiesburg. The street is roped off and usually higher-profile artists headline. Last year we hosted Mutemath, and in years past, we have hosted Dashboard Confessional and Gavin DeGraw.

Tailgating in the District is the other thing I really love about football season. The District is our historic section of campus where tailgating students set up tents and spend their Saturday before heading over to the Rock for the big game. I like to talk to people so the atmosphere of the District is top-notch.

I'm pressed for time right now, so I might come back to this blog later. Thanks, Kimberly, for correcting me. That used to be wrong. See you guys later!