Daniel's Summer Blog

That is here, as well as other things you never knew about the Hines in Heinz.

The other day in class, someone passed me a note. This has not happened to me since probably middle school (people's verbal communication skills have skyrocketed since then), so you can imagine my suprise when the girl sitting across the corner from me nonchalantly flips me a scrap of paper. Now, this class is with a relatively unassessed professor so I am forced to play it safe and not read it as coolly as it was flung at me. This is not helped by the professor sitting at the open end of the U of tables and me sitting at the lower-left corner, directly across from her. So I wait. Of course while I wait, I zone out of class and begin to wonder what the note says. I decide that the note says either: "You are so Jewish and football-loving and have not shaven for almost a week, will you marry me?" or "There is a gigantic booger sticking out of your nose, do everyone a favor and get rid of it." The population of the area where the note originated was four females and one male so I can safely say each option is just as likely as the other. Finally (the professor has her nose in the book), I open the note, and it says, "I like your bookmark." I look down at my bookmark and Gollum glares back up at me. After class I verify the source of the note, and she and I discuss it briefly before going our separate ways. But wait, there is more. The next day, another, different girl yells across the not-yet-started class "hey nice bookmark!" I sheepishly thank her and wonder why it took people more than a year to notice my bookmarks, which have clearly been awesome since I received them in the mail (shoutout to the source of said bookmarks).

I recently visited a friend who was afflicted with pinkeye. Now, I, like everyone else had a good time calling everyone and their mom (they all had pinkeye) "pinky" at camp. However on this occasion my Spider-Sense told me this was in poor taste (note that at camp, almost nothing is in poor taste). I settled for not touching anything in the suite, which I miserably failed to do. What I did do was seriously consider getting my own little biosphere so I could exist without fear of any of the infinite communicable diseases of the world.

I went to a frum party and a not-frum party on Friday night. There were two people, including myself, that were at both. Can you say dichotomy?

The Piston are so good and the Lakers are so bad. This led to the Pistons making the Lakers look like the JV team in high school. The highlight of the game was when Chauncy Billups was cut on the chin and bled on his jersey. NBA rules require a change in jersey, and Billups wanted to stay on the floor. Therefore, he did a quick jersey swap in front of the scorer's table. The instant the bloody jersey came off, The Palace exploded with screams, whistles and general pandemonium.

On the topic of noise, I may have already enlightened some of you about the method of trash collecting at my university. They use backhoes. Backhoes have large engines that can be heard in excess of a mile away. Also, the roads in the quad are too large for these behemoths to turn around, so they throw it in reverse, turning on that beeping noise which, by law, must be heard over the sound of the backhoe herself (Don't get fussed ladies, backhoes are 'she's, I looked it up. Bulldozers and cranes are male.). Oh, and they begin taking out the trash at precisely 7:10 AM. The only way to not be woken up by the miniature aural war is to already be awake and doing homework.

Notes: I read a Dave Barry book written in 1982, so aside from not getting the political jokes, that is why I am subconciously writing like him.
I GOT MY SPRING BREAK TICKETS.

I had intended to break out my new sneakers for the new semester, but so far it has just not happened. Brandeis is just too gross during the winter for shiny new kicks to be worn. Oddly enough there is no snow no the ground, thanks to balmy weather (60) and a freak downpour of rain and hail yesterday. The Cullick-made shoes will have to do until they give out completely.
During said weather, I was meandering around Boston with Max's mom (she gets alot of blog shout-outs) trying to find Rubin's Center for Deliciousness for Kids who Can't Eat Good. After three u-turns, we managed to find it and it was delicious as advertised.

Hitting 88 miles per hour once more, my first real day of classes did not live up to the hype. My first class was cancelled due to a lack of professor. Hebrew and Spanish went well, but at 1400 I attempted to attend my Computational Neuroscience course and was denied entry to the building. Trying another door met with the same result. I went around to the front entrance where there was a hand-written sign taped to the door, "Bomb Threat, 1/18/06." There had been a rumor of a threat for the Heller school, but that is on the northern tip of campus, while the science quad is smack dab in the middle. Therefore the science quad must be closed. One of the professors who is talking to cop tells me there is no class anywhere in the science quad and I should go home. I gladly oblige, my first real day having been reduced to two classes, only one of which is new.

Today, for the third day running, I had a new class, tomorrow will be my first day without one. Monday and Tuesday I will have another two, so it's almost a streak. Preparations are being made for Operation Hellfire, which may be a semester-long expedition. In an unrelated project, I am trying to isolate the bit of Sherman dairy days that are so detestable. If anyone has information about this, I beg them to share it with me.
Trying to break my addiction to 24 by copy-editing for the Justice,
-Daniel

Turns out that I am not good at blogging with any semblance of regularity. The past two months are thankfully a blur with vague points of light that appear to be memories that I have chosen to hold on to. Maybe my mind is just attracted to shiny things. Speaking of ADD and related academics, I finally realized what people were talking about when they speak of "exam stress." I generally do a good job of keeping my stress lower than Marcus Vick's character level, but this semester really got to me. I was in five classes for the first time, but the end-of-semester work seemed to be exponentially related. I did not crumble, but endured, plowing through my work in an unorganized though efficent manner. The were two lights that helped me in my darkest of hours (literally, the sun set at four-ish). The light at the end of the tunnel was obviously winter break. The torch-in-hand however, was the fact the no matter how behind you are, no matter how short your paper is, no matter how little of the material you have read, there is always someone deeper in the pit. I am not sure how this works, because logically there has to be a bottom rung. If you have the solution, don't tell me, I would rather not know.

Almost everyone is going abroad so it will be quieter than usual at the deis next semester but I may take six classes (one independent study) so I will be fairly busy between schoolwork and workwork. That being said, I would like to get into Beantown to go to hockey games and the like, because I did none of that in the fall. I guess that is my new year's resolution: round myself via watching grown men slap a bit of rubber across ice, occasionally getting mad enough to slug each other for it.
May all your resolutions be as attainable.

P.S. More funny stuff next time.