Jarboe's Jabs 4

Tony Jarboe is Artificial Turf's midwest correspondent and one of our Turf Top 17 College Football Pollsters. A journalism student at Northwestern University, Tony will opine about sports and share his college experiences. You can reach Tony at jarboes_jabs@yahoo.com.

Cleaning Out the Fridge (6-18-07)
The last week of school is always tough. On one hand, I was excited to finally be going home to see my family and friends, many of whom I had not seen in months. Plus, I had the extra incentive of a Cardinal’s game waiting for me at the end of the tunnel, so I was especially ready to finish the year. Unfortunately, it is also sad because it was the last time I will see many of the friends I had made at college, at least for the next few months.

There was also a certain sense of panic because of everything that had to be done. Between packing, saying goodbye to everyone, and, oh yeah, taking a couple of minor tests upon which my entire grade hinged, the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

To make all of their belongings fit into their luggage, many people had to throw away pretty much everything that was not nailed down or attatched to their bodies. This includes basically anything in the refrigerator.

My neighbor James was cleaning out his fridge when he found some unopened boxes of Hot Pockets. He did not have enough room in his suitcase to take them, so he offered them to me. As a college student, I am legally required to accept any and all free food.

He came across a few more Hot Pockets, this time not in a box. Again I thanked James and went to put them in my fridge. This time, however, I happened to flip one over. Instead of the nice golden-brownish color they are supposed to be, this one was green.

The other one was also green. I thought perhaps I should check the boxes, to see if they, too, were color-impaired. Indeed, they were all were covered in Penicillin.

When I told James of this problem, he said, “Yeah, I kind of had a feeling they would be bad after that day.”

“What day? The one in December, when the power went out?” I asked, praying that he meant that day, and not the one in September.

“Yeah, that too, but I was thinking of that day we brought all the food back. It got kind of hot, so I was not sure if they would still be good.”

So, yeah, he was talking about that day in September. Yum, frozen processed food that is moldy and old enough to vote. And James was kind enough to offer it to me. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

GIRL POWER…..(6-1-07)
"Northwestern Wins Third Straight Title" blared the headlines on Memorial Day. Wait. What?
"Northwestern", "wins", and "title" in the same sentence? And this was not even "The Onion", or some other similar satirical news website.
No, it was true. The Northwestern women’s lacrosse team captured the title for the third consecutive year. Granted, a lacrosse title is not quite on the level of, say, a BCS Championship, but give us a break. We’re Northwestern! We will take any championship we can get. And hey, three championships in a row is pretty good, even if it were in men’s basket-weaving.
Coach Kelly Amonte-Hiller has guided the ‘Cats to three championships in her six seasons at the helm of the Northwestern women’s lacrosse team. This latest title also adds to Northwestern’s growing collection of championships, giving us a grand total of four in school history (bringing us to within 96 of UCLA’s 100 NCAA titles).
I will let you re-read that last sentence again and do the math. Four championships in school history (in all sports) minus three consecutive lacrosse championships equals one championship EVER prior to 2004. Yes, in six years at Northwestern Amonte-Hiller has won three times as many championships as all other Northwestern coaches in all other sports combined. That previously lonely title? The unforgettable 1941 men’s fencing team. So unforgettable, in fact, that men’s fencing has not been a varsity sport since 1993, when it was relegated to club status. |
Although obviously our strongest team, the lacrosse team is not the only Northwestern squad making headlines. As I write this, our softball team, seeded second in the Women’s College World Series, is three wins shy of bringing home the first title in program history.
So is Northwestern set to become a sports dynasty? Probably not. But the Wildcat girls have it figured out. Now if only our guys could do the same…

ARMADILLOS! (5-26-07)

Academics are at the heart of any university (except for those that start with “M” and rhyme with Fichagan, but I digress). Their main purpose is to help students prepare for their future career through a rigorous curriculum and experienced professors. Without education a college is nothing.

If academics are at the heart of a university, then their soul is their school traditions. Most universities have something unique to them. Princeton has the Nude Olympics, where students run naked during the first snowfall of the year. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has “moo poo bingo”, an event in which students buy squares on a field where a cow grazes. The owner of the first square on which the cow takes care of business is the winner. Then there is North Idaho College, where at the end of November students try to knock down two-liter bottles with a frozen turkey. A strike nets students a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.

At Northwestern, we have Armadillo Day, more commonly known as Dillo Day. Various music groups perform all day out on the lakefill. The bands are apparently fairly well-known, although I’ve never heard of any of them. Cake, The Roots, and Lupe are the “headliners”. I’ll try to contain my excitement.
<Dillos!

In what I assume is a preview for Dillo Day, all of then members from one fraternity stripped down, put on body paint, grass skirts, and coconut bras, and started walking around chanting like an African jungle tribe. Even for college, it was a little on the odd side.

The school also sponsors various events throughout the day such as a pancake breakfast. Anywhere from 10 to 15,000 people come out to Northwestern for the day.

However, I will venture a guess that pancakes are not the reason Dillo Day is the most anticipated day of the entire year (although they are pretty good). That more likely has something to do with the rather large quantities of alcohol that are consumed. Students will wake up at 8 AM to drink and basically party all day long. It is really the one day every year that Northwestern students can act like real college students.

Today is even more special because it more or less marks the end of classes. Next week is Reading Week, which is a week where most classes are canceled so students can concentrate on studying for finals. I only have one class next week, so I am almost officially done with my freshman year. And then finals.

Hmm, I need a drink (Note to parents: Just kidding).

NO HABLO ESPAN…ESPA…..SPANISH! (5-19-07)

Once again showing that my prognostication skills are not quite on par with, say, Miss Cleo, I predicted that Spring Quarter would be a breeze for me and even suggested that I could get straight “A’s”.

Things are more or less going according to plan in my Journalism and Economics courses. Things could be going a little more smoothly in Christianity, but overall that class has not been too much of a struggle. Spanish, well, that's a different story.

After getting through the first half of the two-part class without too much of a struggle, I figured the second half would not be much more difficult. I assumed I would learn a couple new verb tenses, maybe some vocabulary, and I would be golden. You know what they say about people who assume.

I only did have to learn a couple of new verb tenses, but the problem is that that was on a weekly basis, not a monthly basis. Sure, that does not sound too tough, but after a month of learning so many different verb tenses and trying to remember which ending goes with which tense, which verbs do not follow the normal pattern, etc., things get more clouded than Ricky Williams’ living room.

Earlier I mentioned that I had forgotten most of my Spanish in the 20-day layoff between Spanish I and II, so I was already starting out behind most of the other kids in the class. Even worse, this book was designed to be taught over the course of a year, not two quarters, so we have to keep moving, making it very difficult to keep up. Even the prof thinks we have to go through the book too quickly. Now, as you know I’m not much for math (well, Calculus anyway), but:

slow learner + fast pace = bad news

Also for that class we have to watch a Spanish soap opera, La Usupadora (The Usurper). The plot is that this rich lady finds a poor girl that looks just like her, so she hires the poor girl to take her place for a year so she can run off to be with her boyfriend. Of course, the family figures out pretty fast that something weird is going on and it sets a whole chain of events in motion. Oh, and of course it turns out that the two main characters are actually twin sisters (played by the same actress). It is one of those unintentionally funny things, because the plot is so bad and the acting so shoddy that you cannot help but laugh. The idea is that watching it is supposed to help our listening comprehension, but I have a difficult time hearing what the characters are saying over the howling of laughter.

Anyway, after way too many worksheets, hours of study, and trips to the professor’s office, I have finally more or less caught up to the other students. But this class has taught me two valuable lessons.

First, I underestimated the difficulty of a class and I have paid the price. It has taken a massive amount of work to catch up to other students.

Second, if I ever go into acting, never, ever, evereverever work on a soap opera. There is no faster way to destroy an acting career than to work on a soap opera.

THOSE WACKY COLLEGE KIDS (5-13-07)
In most places, a man in a hotdog suit is a sight to behold. On a college campus, it is just a part of daily life.

            College campuses are home to many strange sights and Northwestern is no exception. From the dude in the hotdog suit to the guy who apparently ticked off his barber, I have seen so many head-scratching things that think that I have lice.

            What of our friend in the wiener costume? He actually had a purpose (not always a prerequisite for doing something outlandish), as he was promoting Hot Dog Days for one of the fraternities at Northwestern. The fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pie, was selling hot dogs to help raise money for cancer research. In addition to the giant tube steak, they printed up T-shirts for their members to promote the event. It was a good cause, but still, it was kind of weird to walk out of class and be staring at a guy in a hotdog costume.

            Another time when I was out and about I saw a guy who mad his hair-stylist a little, shall we say, displeased. In the interest of full journalistic disclosure, I will admit that I do not know for a fact that this guy actually ticked off his barber, but that is the only rational explanation I have for his hair cut. This dude had a perfectly normal hair, except that he was missing half of it. He had a strip of hair, then a shaved strip, then another strip of hair, alternating all the way across his head. Each strip was about an inch thick. As I said, maybe he angered his barber, because no rational person would ask for that hairstyle. Or maybe a normal haircut was $14 and he only had $7, so he got half a hair cut. It is possible that he has male pattern baldness. That’s one heck of a pattern. Whatever the case, I am sure the ‘do will be a big hit with his potential employers as he interviews for jobs. I suppose he could always become a sales clerk at an alternative-clothing store, but that is not exactly a great use of a $40,000-a-year education.

            One of the buildings on campus has a courtyard in the middle of it, with only a small opening on one side to get into the courtyard. One day I was walking by and I heard some loud voices coming from inside the courtyard. Since no one is usually in there, I wondered what was up. Was there a fight? I get there and there is a guy dressed in a robe styled like one from the 15^th (ish) century, and he was talking to a crowd of people, telling a story of some sort. On either side he had merchant’s wagon, one that you would find in a marketplace during that time. Either this guy got lost on his way to the Middle Ages or he was part on a play. I am guessing it is option B, because I have not seen Christopher Lloyd running around with a DeLorean. And quite frankly, I will be quite concerned if I ever do.

            These strange sights are good for a chuckle every now and then, and they help to break up the everyday monotony of class, work, and meetings. Not a week goes by where I am not left pondering how inebriated I would have to be to do what others are doing, presumably completely sober. Now if you will excuse me, I have to run to the store to buy a hotdog costume.

A Matter of Time…(5-7-07)
Time or money? Before college, if given the choice of whether I would prefer more hours in the day or extra money, I would take the dollar bills every time. After all, time is not sexy. Money is. Money allows you to buy things. Money gives you more financial options. Money is power.
What money cannot buy you is freedom. Sure, having a high-paying job is nice, but what good is making $100,000 a year if you are never around to enjoy it?
          I have met many students at Northwestern who are financially set. They have access to their parent’s considerable wealth, which gives them more money than I could ever dream of. And yet they are still unhappy because they cannot do anything. Why?
< This...or that? >
They don’t have the time. It does not matter how rich or poor you are. You still only get 24 hours in a day. When money is not a limiting factor in freedom, time often is. People get so wrapped up in creating money that it takes up all of their time without them even realizing it. Of course working 80 hours a week can be miserable, and, really, is being rich and miserable any better than being poor and miserable? Granted, it is more fun to cry in a Ferrari than a cardboard box, but you get the idea. It is not fun either way.
Although I am not exactly Bill Gates Jr., I am able to live comfortably enough in college. But, like everyone else, I am restricted by time. Because of this, time management has become extremely important. Balancing homework, classes, extra-curriculars, a job, and sleep is difficult in a 24-hour window. Difficult, but not impossible. I have managed to eliminate or minimize time-consuming activities such as watching TV, surfing the internet, playing video games, talking with my friends online, etc. Now I can get everything done and still manage 6-7 hours of sleep per night, while most of my friends only get 4-5 hours.
Barring some change in the time-space continuum, we will continue to have only 24 hours in a day, so I have found that wishing for more time does not help. By cutting out unproductive activities, I have managed to maximize my time and fit more of the things that I want to do into my schedule. As the old saying goes, “Need something done? Ask a busy person.”
*Note to parents: Just because I would rather have more time than money does not mean I do not want money. Please keep the cash coming.


THE FRIENDLY CONFINES…..(4-27-07)

           Ohio State and Michigan. Duke and North Carolina. Bears and Packers. Cards and Cubs. Any time you can see your favorite team in action is great. Any time you can see your favorite team in action against their hated rival, it just gets that much better.

Last week one of my friends told me that she had an extra ticket to Saturday’s game between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals and asked if I wanted to go. I had a dilemma, because the Chicago Art Institute was having a study series that same day on Baroque Art, and I had been looking forward to that for months. And I am sure I would have been even more excited if I had a clue what the heck Baroque Art is.
< Baroque art.

If somebody offered me tickets to see the Devil Rays play the Royals I would go. Asking me if I wanted free tickets to see the Cards take on their biggest rival was the equivalent of asking David Wells whether or not he would like another cheeseburger.

Wearing my “St. Louis Cardinals 2006 World Series Champions” hat and t-shirt, I showed up at my friend Naomi’s house so we could take the “L” to Wrigley Field (the “L” is Chicago’s main form of public transportation). She answered the door in her Cubs hat, gave me one look, shook her head, and said, “You are an embarrassment.” I took it as a complement.

            Wrigley Field is about a 30 minute “L” ride from the Northwestern campus. It was an uneventful trip for the most part except that we had to do our best sardine impersonation for the last half of the ride. The “L” was packed even though we got there almost three hours before game time.

            We got to our seats soon after the gates opened. When the usher pointed us towards the front of the stadium I got excited. When I found out that we were 12 rows behind home plate I grew ecstatic.

David Eckstein, the Cardinal’s shortstop, was standing 50 feet away from me as I reached my seat. He was signing t-shirts for some young children. As the Cubs took batting practice the St. Louis players stood around mingling with the fans and doing light workouts, waiting for their chance in the cage. When it was the Cards’ turn to take BP, I told Naomi a little bit about each player as he stepped into the batting cage to take his cuts.

            After BP I started talking to a pair of elderly ladies, probably in their late 70s. Both were decked out in full Cubs regalia and appeared to be long-time season ticket holders. After a couple of minutes I looked down at my shirt and remarked, “You probably aren’t going to like me very well.” One of the ladies laughed and said, “Cardinal fans are fine. At least you aren’t a White Sox fan.”

            I thought walking into Wrigley wearing a Cardinal’s shirt was about like walking into a lion’s den wearing a pork chop. Instead I was largely ignored by Cub fans and those that did talk to me never ripped the Cardinals. Sadly, this almost ruined my day. What good is a ball game without some spirited debate?
<And it will!

            I soaked in the atmosphere as fans slowly took their seats before the game. Although Cubs fans had the clear numerical advantage, there was plenty of Cardinal red in the stands, probably 35 percent of the people in attendance.

            The weather could not have been more perfect. It was 80 degrees and sunny with a slight breeze, by far the best weather we had had so far this year. And a Cards/ Cubs game was the perfect way to spend the perfect day.

            It remained the perfect day for about 30 minutes. That’s how long it took the Cubs to get a three-run home run to put them up for good. The Cards scored a grand total of zero runs that game. St. Louis displayed the power of your average golf cart, managing just seven singles the whole game. The Cubs won 6-0.

            After the game we managed to beat most of the other attendees to the “L” stop, most likely in part due to the fact that about 35 percent of the patrons hit the neighborhood taverns to forget what they had just seen.

            For the first part of the ride back home we were packed in, but as more patrons got off we were able to spread out a little. I was finally able to breathe again about three-quarters of the way back.

            Despite the impotent offense and lackluster pitching, it was a good day. Beautiful weather, good fans, and a baseball game. What more could a guy ask for?
< Um, how about this Tony?

Illi-NOISE…(4-21-07)

            Like most people, sometimes I just need to get out and clear my head. I enjoy

going for a walk in a nice, quiet place or just sitting in silence and taking in the scene.

            That had never really been a problem back home. There were nine people in my square mile, so I was never exactly overwhelmed by others. I could step outside and go for a walk around the farm without ever seeing another soul. I might pass a car or two along the road, but that was it. Finding a quiet place to relax was not too tough.

            I have found this task to be considerably more difficult in Evanston. Occasionally the weather will be so nice that I simply cannot study indoors. I feel like I have to be outside enjoying the weather. Or maybe, like this week, after completing my midterms I need a mental rest, where I just need to find a nice, calm area where I can stretch out and unwind. Therein lies the problem.

Cars are constantly whizzing by on the main road through campus, which in itself is annoying enough. Factor in several emergency vehicle sirens throughout the day and traffic alone can be very tough to deal with when trying to get some peace and quiet.

The streets in this area are always under construction. Seriously. Ever since I got here seven months ago, there has been major construction right outside my dorm. And the noise drives me insane every time I look for a spot away from my room.

Thankfully, the noise from the machinery is not constant. No, periodically a low-flying airplane will drown out the construction crew, since we are less than 20 miles from O’Hare International Airport. This is kind of like someone stomping on your foot to help you forget about your headache.

Add in the occasional security alarm from a nearby dormitory and you get the idea that one can become distracted from studying every now and then when outside the cubicle I call a room.

It always use to bother me when someone pronounced the state “Illi-noise” because the “s” is silent. “No, there is no noise in Illinois,” I would always say. How wrong I was.

A Tale of Two Fans (4-14-07)
            I have been a St. Louis Cardinals fan all of my life. My dad is a Cardinals fan, my granddad is a Cardinals fan, and my great-granddad was a Cardinals fan. At a young age I was given a choice: I could be a Cardinals fan or I could be disowned. I was introduced to baseball at a young age and I took to it like Kristy Alley took to Krispy Kremes.
< Tony's team.

            James is much the same. He comes from a long line of Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (of Orange County of…) fans and from birth he had no choice but to be an Angels fan. He embraced the Halos with all of his heart.

Despite the fact that James loves the Angels as much as I love the Cards, we represent the two sides on the fan spectrum.

            James represents the emotional fans. He loves scrappy guys such as David Eckstein and Darin Erstad, guys that don’t have as much talent as many of their peers, but scratch and claw through every inning of every game. He roots for the underdog and loves feel-good stories.

His family has season tickets to the Angels, so he attends about 50 games per year, which allows him to know the players on a more individual level. James also loves a player’s “intangible” qualities such as chemistry, hustle, and ability to take the extra base.

            For me, there is nothing more enjoyable than a day at the ballpark. But since I only one or two Cardinal games a year and am outside of the Cardinal’s broadcasting area, I do not get to watch my beloved Redbirds very often. Because of this, I do not know the individual players on the Cardinals, so my love is more of the team than the individuals that compose the team. You could say my love of the game is more “platonic”, a more detached love revolving more around statistics than emotions. For me, the crazier the stat the better. Runs batted in? Please. Give me Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP). You like batting average? I’ll take equivalent average (Eqa).

I do not value “intangibles” nearly as much as other fans. Sure, I love when Eckstein hustles down the line on a routine grounder, but that is less productive than when, say, Albert Pujols trots around the bases after smacking the ball into the next county. While people love to talk about a player’s intangibles, I feel that they are nearly worthless. Besides, most “intangibles” will find their way into the tangible stats now and again. Hustling out routine grounders leads to the occasional base hit when the fielder bobbles the ball momentarily (and the scorekeeper is feeling generous). Ability to take the extra base is reflected in a player’s tangible stats by scoring a few more runs than he might have otherwise. Over the long haul, though, intangibles are not valuable enough to merit the attention they receive.

            My less emotional approach allows me to appreciate good play, even by players I do not like. Most people hate Barry Bonds, and with good reason. There are more loveable guys on “America’s Most Wanted”. While I am by no means a Bonds fan, I love watching him play. Every at bat has historical significance as he slugs his way towards Hank Aaron for perhaps the most sacred record in all of sports.

            James, on the other hand, is less appreciative of Bonds. One of his favorite baseball memories came when he was sitting in the front row at a Giants game and he yelled, “Hey Barry, you suck!” and Bonds heard him.

            None of this is to say I never get emotional. When the Cards play in October I have literally been sick to my stomach watching the games. After getting knocked out of the playoffs it takes me about a week to recover. And following the sweep in the 2004 World Series I was almost in tears. I am emotional for three hours on every game day, but in general I maintain a less emotional approach than other fans.

            In a way James and I represent the meshing of traditional and contemporary baseball. When we debate, James bases his arguments more on anecdotal evidence and gut feelings, whereas I rely more on statistics to make my points.
            Who is correct? Who cares? That is the beauty of baseball. You are never wrong.

A WEEK TO FORGET (4-8-07)

            Spring Quarter has been in session for two weeks now and classes are in full swing. Most extra-curricular activities began this week, so students had a little time to get settled into their new schedules before worrying about everything else.

            Wednesday was the first newscast of the new quarter for Northwestern News Network, the campus TV station. With the shifting of several staff members, we were prepared for a few bumps in the road. What we hit during the first part of the show were not so much bumps as potholes.

            The first ten minutes of the show were a disaster. Correspondents did not get their reports in until past the deadline so the script was not settled until late. Because of this, not everyone was on the same page during the newscast. We also had trouble with audio and graphics. Several times the wrong anchor was on camera because of miscommunication. Our reporter that was live in the studio froze twice because of the commotion of people running around trying to fix things.

The newscast appears twice, once live at 7 and once at 10 on Evanston public television. Whenever something goes wrong we re-tape it for the 10 o’clock newscast, a process that normally takes about ten minutes. Wednesday, we were there for half an hour trying to get all of the glitches fixed.

And somehow, someway, I managed to do even worse as producer of my radio newscast two days later.

The two anchors that I normally work with have been together for eight years, which makes my job much easier. The night before the newscast, however, I received an email from one of them saying that they would be out of town and needed replacements. Since it was a Friday afternoon time slot, people were not exactly jumping to volunteer to fill in. Two hours before show time I did not know who my anchors would be.

            This was also my first time in the brand new studio, so I was unfamiliar with some of the equipment. I had an unfamiliar studio and two new anchors to work with. Good times.

            The two replacement anchors were experienced, but they were more deliberate than the two I usually work with, so we had to push back the start of the show to get the script set. When we finally got on the air I was dealing with equipment which was completely foreign to me. My entire purpose is to make things run smoothly, so knowing how to run the equipment would have been helpful.

            My anchors sat down and were ready to go. I cued up the theme music and my lead anchor started talking…but I could not hear him. I furiously adjusted the board trying to get his microphone to work to no avail. I stopped him and had the music DJs stall for time while I tried to get things fixed.

            Finally things were ready to go, and we started again. We were already ten minutes late going on the air, but that did not matter. I was just happy to have everything straightened out. Or so I thought.

            In the new station the anchors do not have control over their microphones yet, so the producers have to turn them on and off, something we did not have to do at the old station. Throughout most of the newscast I forgot to adjust the microphones accordingly, so the anchors would have to hiss at me to turn them on, leaving several seconds of dead air each time (leaving dead air is a cardinal sin in radio producing).

            The anchors are normally in a newsroom separate from me, but today they were in the studio where I was working due to equipment problems. Because of this, everything in the room had to be quiet, and I could not hear how loud the background music was. As a result, several times I had the theme music or commercials up way too loud, and, after writhing in pain, one of my anchors told me to turn it down.

            After slogging through the 20 most painful minutes in my radio career my anchor turned around and said, “Let’s just burn the script and pretend today never happened.”

On the bright side, there is room for improvement.



First Impressions (4-1-07)
            I began the third and final quarter of the year on Monday (yes, I am aware that “quarter” implies four, but people insist on saying we are on the “quarter system” even though we have only three periods, so I just don’t argue). I got a pretty good feel for most of my classes this week, getting an idea of how difficult they will be and what kind of work will be involved.

We are beginning to work in multimedia in the journalism course that I am taking, so in addition to writing I will also be photographing and videotaping various news stories this quarter. Although I prefer print journalism I think the experience with video will be helpful, if for no other reason than to keep my options open whenever I enter this mysterious “real world” that people keep talking about.

My Intro to Christianity course seems like it will be enjoyable, although there will be a ton of reading involved. The class meets three times a week and usually students are asked to read about 30 pages from the bible before each class. By itself, that is a manageable amount of reading but in conjunction with my other classes, it looks like I will have to spend many weekends catching up on work.

I am taking a Spanish course that is a continuation from last quarter. When I finish this class I will have fulfilled my foreign language requirement and never have to take any Spanish ever again! I learned that it takes most of the quarter, or about ten weeks, for me to be able to speak the language with any sort of coherency. When I went to class on Monday, I found it takes approximately twenty days for me to completely forget everything I ever learned about Spanish. So my first day of class was absolutely terrible as I tried to remember ANYTHING from the previous quarter. I tried to wing it by adding “o” to the end of all English words, but apparently that is not correct.

I also found out the hard way that sometimes it is best to just keep quiet when you have a limited vocabulary. The prof, a female in her 20s, had a new hairstyle that I thought was nice. I was searching for an adjective, and the best I could come up with was “Su pelo es interesante,” which means “Your hair is interesting.” I meant for it to be a complement, but said in mock horror “Interesante! Es negativo!”, because “interesting” is what you say when your boss walks in with a Hawaiian shirt, plaid shorts, black socks, and sandels and asks what you think of his outfit. I have always had a penchant for picking just the wrong word in English. Now I can unintentionally insult people in two languages.

The only course I did not really get a feel for is microeconomics, because right now we are reviewing the basic principles of supply and demand, which I have known for years. I will not know how difficult the course will actually be for a few weeks, when we start learning new concepts. The only thing I learned this week is that my econ course will involve a lot of reading, so I have to balance that with my Christianity course and hopefully stay on top of things.

Northwestern also made a significant change this quarter in regards to dormitory policy. Previously students were allowed to enter and exit the dorms through both primary and secondary entrances between 7 AM and 10 PM. Now, because there have been a few thefts (I do not know exactly how many but estimates are in the single digits), the university has shut down all secondary entrances, so students cannot enter or leave through them. If a student does exit through a secondary entrance a loud alarm goes off for about 10 seconds. My dorm has 15 secondary exits that students use all the time, meaning that I am constantly hearing the “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” of alarms going off, which of course is very conducive to studying.

So Spring has sprung here at NU and with the new quarter come many changes, some good and some changes that are not so good *cough* alarms *cough*.

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM (3-25-07)
            Spring break is almost over. I have just two precious days of freedom left before I go back to Northwestern and begin Spring Quarter.

            Although this week has been highly unproductive, it has been an enjoyable one nonetheless. My toughest reading assignment this week was the comics in the newspaper and the hardest math problem was figuring how many Oreos I could stuff into my mouth at once. Yes, life is good.

            To be fair, I actually did do something useful this week. Before the week I had two goals: set my schedule for next quarter and pack my clothes for the return trip to Northwestern. The first one I accomplished. I finalized my schedule for Spring Quarter. My courses include Journalism, Spanish, Economics, and Intro to Christianity. I am sure there will be challenges along the way, but right now the course load does not seem daunting.

As for the goal of packing, well...at some point I should probably get on that. I do not leave until Sunday night, so I will probably start late Sunday afternoon. I do not want to put it off until the last minute or anything.

            Other than finishing my schedule, the big development this week was receiving my grades from Winter Quarter. My Calculus teacher must have read my comments about his class because I got a “C” in math. Then again, maybe I got a “C” because I am terrible at Calculus. I suppose that is also possible.
<Not Tony's bag.
Aside from that, however, things actually turned out pretty well, as I scored “A’s” in my other three courses, Spanish, History, and Journalism. For now, anyway, things are looking pretty good. Hopefully it continues into the spring.

TWO DOWN, ONE TO GO! (3-18-07)
            Spring break is here, meaning I have now survived the first two quarters of my college career. With a rather large grin on my face, I can put a bow-tie on the quarter gone by and begin looking ahead to the final stretch of my freshman year.

After taking three exams in the past week, I am more relieved than anything about finally reaching spring break. The last two weeks have been spent trying to learn things such as how to say, “I walked the dog,” in Spanish (Yo caminé el perro), the purpose of a Taylor Series in Calculus (I STILL do not know what the purpose of a Taylor Series is), and when the War of 1812 was fought (take a wild guess). By the time my last exam was over I was not running on fumes. I was running on the fumes of my fumes of my fumes. And lots of caffeine.

I crashed as soon as exams ended, because I had just pulled two all-nighters in four days, which probably was not healthy for me. Then again, it beats failing a final exam. So the past few days have been spent catching up on sleep, and in doing so I have begun reflect in all that I have learned in my young c