Sleepless in Chicago

To date, the greatest scientific minds in the world are still unsure as to why humans need sleep to function. Ants, for instance, do not sleep. Instead they simply stay stationary as a way to relax. An individual ant is only moving and doing the work for the anthill 20% of the time. The other eighty is spent staying still, but they never actually enter an unconscious state. Don't ask me how an Entomologist can measure the conscious state of a ant, I just repeat the random knowledge I acquire in my life. The particular fact of never sleeping was given to me at the end of a Nickelodeon commercial when I was ten. The percents on the ant activity was found out during one of those timed reading test practice ACT articles. It wasn't a question on the test, but I remember being interested on that paragraph.
     Last night, I went to bed at around 3:30. I had class at 9. Now before you start to get upset (mom), I normally sleep 7-8 hours a night. During the last four years of high school, I slept about 5-6 hours a night. At this point, I don't know what to do with all my extra sleep. I'm taking 17 credit hours this semester and I will start working a few hours a week in the near future. As a result of this surplus sleep, I listened to music  and watched youtube videos with some people until I finally went to sleep. When I did go to sleep, there were still four people awake in my cluster.
     Many people have been complaining about how much less sleep they get in college. I do not have this problem. Victor, as an architect major, sleeps about five hours each night. Last night, he had nearly seven hours of sleep. Good for him. Others, however do not get this sleep normally. I was invited to a Bollywood movie night last night. To give you an idea, they wanted to watch two movies. A short Bollywood movie is still over two hours in length. I was invited twenty minutes before it started. This invite was given at 1:30AM.
     In short, if you ever need to talk someone at anytime of the day or night, it is never too hard to find someone who is up and awake.

There is no such thing as a free lunch

Today's title is a phrase commonly used in economics classes. This phrase comments on how nothing involving physical resources is free. If someone has a "free" lunch consisting of an apple, a PB&J sandwich, and a bag of chips, they must have come from somewhere. It took soil, sun, water, and a lot of time to grow the tree and produce the apple. This is the same case with the grapes to make the jelly. I won't even try to go through the wheat of the bread, the meat, or the potato chips. The point is, resources, time included, are constantly being expended for something "free".
     I bring this up because coldstone had "free" icecream today. The way it was set up, you received a small scoop of their icecream, the flavor of which was chosen by them. There was a guy accepting donations at the front door. He looked somewhat like a bouncer for a club and did not let a soul through until the donation of at least a dollar was made.
     Right now, free scarfs are being given to all UIC students who attend the soccer game tonight. Once admitted to the game, students are given a wristband and will not be given their scarf until the end of the game.

Free Music that isn't also illegal

      I am proud to say that I do not own nor have I ever owned any illegal music. So, there must be an alternative. I frequently visit Youtube for particular songs and constantly listen to Pandora. Most people know what Youtube is at this point. Pandora is an online customizable radio station. You just choose, an artist, a song, or even a genre, and Pandora will begin to play songs based around that selection. Pandora has always had ads to support themselves and to pay off copyrights to their respective artists. The ads and their frequency are beginning to increase, but Pandora is still a great source for free music radio.
     Recently (about 5 hours ago), I have been turned on to a new legal website called Jamendo. The idea is rather new and the website has less than 1 million members. It is so new to the point that spellcheck on my blog is getting upset when I write Jamendo. Jamendo is a free music downloading/ radio website that is free and legal. The only downside is that you probably haven't heard of any of the artists of the 20,000 albums on this website because it mostly new artists that want to spread their music without having to pay a fortune onto the record companies. Jac, at hearing this, said that this was really just another upside. Jamendo allows a new outlet for indie artists to disburse their music. It's rather exciting.

Major Change

I am currently a Chemistry Major. I will soon be a Chemical Engineer Major with a Computer Engineer Minor. Did you know that UIC has a Chemical Engineering Building? I didn't either. It's at the corner of Polk and Clinton and is a good ten minute walk off campus since polk does not run through the Interstate. The staff at the building were very nice, and they are helping me make this transition much easier.
     A chemical engineer is a person who can be brought into almost any line of industry. They can possibly make pharmaceuticals, new paint mixtures, designs for new packaging, or even the food and snack industry. The main goal of any chemical engineer is to take the particular product at hand and redesign it to make it be the highest possible quality for the lowest possible cost.
     This efficiency, which may save as little as one cent per item, makes a big difference. This would essentially mean that for every one million items of said product sold, the company will save around ten thousand dollars. For example, look at a blue M&M. The color of it is slightly lighter in color than the cartoon counterpart. They used to be the same color until the candy was recently made less dark. Whether a new type of dye is being used or there is simply a higher dilution of the same dye, I do not know. What I do know is that a small change of paying ever so slightly less for dye makes a huge difference in the company's bottom line. Of course, this slight loss of color does not cause a loss in quality for the consumer. It is the best of both world's. It's what a chemical engineer does.

Phone Trouble

     My phone is in an interesting state right now; it will only charge when the phone is off. Add this to the fact that after charging for awhile, it will turn itself on and begin to deplete its battery, and it's easy to see my dilemma. oh, and service is not so great in my room or even existent most of the time.
     Some other interesting phone stories include:

> a phone falling down an elevator shaft. Especially since that person doesn't even live in the residence hall it happened in.

> watching a phone separate the front, back, and battery in mid-air after being hit out of someone's hand by a hat that was thrown 15 feet away.

> one doofus left their charger at home after visiting for the weekend and had to get it mailed to them.

YouTube

     A highly accessible source of free entertainment comes from YouTube. Yesterday I saw a sea lion doing sit ups to the Rocky Theme Song. I am presently watching a mock news channel. We were watching stand up comedy and I soon realized that one of the people was a guy from across the hall. These videos contain content of all the random things that occur in the lives of everyone. Well, maybe not carol of the bells played on water bottles, but little babies biting their older siblings definitely happen.
     Parodies are wonderfully hilarious. Almost every song nowadays has an alternate version to it. Song mockery and comedy is no longer limited to just the discretion  of Weird Al Yankovich. I have seen the video Ich bin dein Gummibar (I am your Gummy Bear) many times in several languages. Thanks to YouTube I know how to catch a duck, properly react to rainbows, and that california girls play candyland too much.

Jim's

     There is a wonderful food establishment named Jim's that is less than 100 feet from JST. They pride themselves of being the best polish hotdog place in all of Chicago. I honestly have not had it yet. I still order their  delicious burgers.
     Because Jim's gives a discount to students, I get a cheese burger, fries, and a drink for $2.40. Jim's is open 24/7. I have had Jim's in the afternoon as well as three in the morning. There are all types of people at Jim's at all times of the day. In one hour, it is safe to say that there will be college students, business men, policemen, drug junkies, hipsters, limo drivers, and any other social group imaginable. Jim's is truly an icon of Chicago

Penguin

     So, for those of you who read this blog, you are aware that one of the options that I have for emotional reactions is penguin. I want to hear your opinions on what the definition of the emotion penguin means to you. Please invite anyone you know to leave a comment on what they think it might mean.
  
thanks guys (and gals),
     Jeff

P.S.
For the one person in Canada who reads my blog day after day, you are awesome. thank you.

Assassin

     A game that I now know as Assassin was introduced to me earlier this week. No, this is not the Assassin that involves water and randomly attacking people with it. This is a game that is a combination of Mafia and MMA fighting; it's the best general description I can think of. Playing cards are passed out to each player, one of the cards is an Ace. This is the Assassin. The cards are collected, and the game soon begins.
     Before any gameplay starts, all windows and other light sources are covered except one light that is controlled by a light switch. When the assassin has been chosen and the light is switched off, the battle begins. People become rather violent with eachother when they can only see outlines of shadows and assumes that everyone is out to get them. This can result in kicking, shoving, pushing, tripping, wrestling, and occasionally lifting people up only to drop them. Murder by the assassin, however, occurs only when a hand is felt across the victim's throat, modeling the slaughter of livestock and the like. When a "dead body" is discovered, the lights are turned on, and a vote is taken on who the assassin is. This process continues until the assassin is voted out or the assassin kills off everyone.
     Classic strategies include:
.Multiple kills
.Get near someone, ask if they are alive, then kill them
.Kill the person heading for the light switch
.Hide on the sink
.Pick up the couch, crawl under, and hide

     Things that should not occur:
.Dead bodies should not be singing
.Don't let a potential kill get away
.Don't have your next victim in a headlock when the lights turn on
.The same person should not be killed first everytime, but it is rather comical

Laundry

     What can I say? I will admit that I was one of those very fortunate (and grateful) children who didn't have to do their own laundry for the first 18 years of my life. That has changed recently, of course.
     I will be honest, I have no idea how to measure out the right amount of detergent and softener. I use (product placement alert! Although not really since they aren't paying me, but they should) Purex three-in-one laundry sheets. It is a thick sheet that has the right amount of detergent and softener already built in. Then, after the soap has been dissolved in the washer, the sheet then becomes the same sheet for the dryer. It is a wonderful thing for college kids, people in a hurry, senior citizens  who have arthritis and cannot otherwise do laundry due to not being able twist off the lids of heavy detergent bottles, and individuals who are prone to spilling the contents of containers everywhere.
     In addition, I have not actually had to fold my laundry as of this point. Milie, who is awesome, likes folding laundry and has folded all of my laundry (excluding boxers) in exchange for thank you notes. This concept is starting to catch on with the other residents of my cluster.

Consumer Culture

     These two words best describeAmerica in its current state. Between posters, billboards, commercials, and ads on websites like Facebook (yes, even this site),  everyone is constantly bombarded by media to purchase things. I am not saying that this is a horrible thing; what I am saying is that people need to be able to not get caught up in buying things just because it is right in front of them. The ability to actually click on an ad, read about the product, and then log off without buying it, requires some self-control (or maybe just the lack of money), but I have faith in you.
     We are reading a book in my English class called Remix. In this book, the issues of music, copyrighting, and our consumer culture in general are discussed. The author talks about how at one point America was based upon making and creating culture but has now become a consumer, what he call read-only, culture.
     I believe that the media has an important place in our culture. "Place" being the key word. I do not believe the media should be "The" culture of America. We, as unique individuals, should be able to invent our own way to contribute to culture and make it our own. So, start a new group at school, invent something, write a song, write a book; Do something that will make a difference. Even the smallest thing can make a huge change in our world.

Mario's

     Mario's Italian Ice is located on Taylor Street in the middle of Little Italy. They sell one item: Italian Ice, as the name might suggest. Mario has flavors ranging from lemon, to blue raspberry, to chocolate. It is always wonderfully delicious. Yesterday, Kory visited, and we made it a point to go to Mario's.
     Yesterday was the last official day of the year that Mario's will be open. They will, however, be open until midweek. This occurs because they do not want to waste their ice, so they sell until the last bit is gone. This results in most flavors disappearing instantly, while other flavors, like grape, will last until the end. After this, Mario's will open next summer, around the time of Memorial Day.

Ed Debevic's

     Last night we went to Ed Debevic's to celebrate Kimi's 13th birthday. Kimi turns 19 this upcoming May. Ed's is a wonderful place where they openly tell you that they want you eat and then get the heck out. They will openly mock you and others while you dine. Because humans enjoy ridicule for some sadistic reason, Ed's is an enjoyable place to be. Ed's also prides themselves of a special treat: the world's smallest hot fudge sundae. Kimi's 14th birthday was later celebrated at a place called Hashbrown's this morning while I was at church.

Community

There is a certain liveliness among the residents. I like to think of it as a type of family. Sam has bought  enough bacon for ten people to have a meal out of it (the bagels and eggs didn't hurt either, thanks buddy). Sam, as well as many others, basically live in our cluster. He really only leaves when he goes to sleep. Kimi, on the other hand, sleeps on our couch more than she sleeps in her own bed. As I write this, in fact, Kimi is sleeping with an extra blanket of mine and a pillow belonging to Victor.

    Mike has had friends over in our cluster without any of us actually being there. I think it's cool that he feels comfortable in our cluster. One day I walked into my cluster to see seven or so people just hanging out with several more doing homework. The funny thing is, I only knew 3 of them at the time, and none of them actually lived there. 

     Last night, we had Jim's around midnight and went back to Milie's room; We then preceded in watching every single short film ever created by Pixar: from the 80s to the present. Before that, we watched the movie The Rock. It was decently awesome. We soon found ourselves playing one of Milie's video games. It was some crazy, messed up japanese game where the main character rolls a ball that has gravity on it. It picks up small things, but will eventually devour houses. It also had trippy color, designs, and strange cartoon shorts that were supposed to explain the storyline. As you might guess, the storyline movies have nothing to do with the game.

     Families, however, will always have fights. Although we have not had an issue yet, we are prepared. Earlier in the week we had to sign cluster agreement forms. This form describes how issues like cleanliness and disagreements will be handled. For cleanliness, one of the members of our room will clean it all by himself with a vacuum. He may have been partially distracted at the time I asked him to sign the form, and I don't think he reads this blog. All arguments, we decided, will be settled by the official UFC rules.

Free Speech

     In America, we are given the freedom of speech. This can be considered a horrible crime in many other countries, and we are lucky to have this freedom here. As a result, many opinions are expressed all of the time. Some of these opinions are put in print for the world to see. In the city, there are always signs, banners, and posters posted everywhere. Today, I saw a banner pulled by an airplane advertising hot air balloon rides.
     For more outgoing advocates of free speech, a news paper or article is printed for that organization's cause. Several of these are put on by members of the school. They can involve political cartoons, articles about employment, or announcements of upcoming events. Some publications, however, may be completely different. I was given an article yesterday supported by the Marxist organization of America. The symbol of the hammer and sickle were displayed in the upper right corner. They were being passed out in the middle of campus by a 70 year old woman in a wheel chair. The article insulted the president while at the same time demanding him to end aid to Israel and support Palestine. I'll let you form your own opinion on that instead of adding my own.
     This blog is my particular expression of free speech. Thank you very much to all of you who actually take the time out of your day to read this. It is greatly appreciated. I don't know why you find this interesting, but thanks for always reading.

Friday

     On Friday, Kimi brought a friend to visit UIC and to spend the night. They decided to have a sleepover in our cluster. Sam, who lives down the hall and constantly nags me when I forget to make a post, gave her permission. It wasn't until after all plans were made that anyone in our cluster actually learned about this plot.
     One person from down the hall had brownie mix. So, as rational people, we went to Seven Eleven at 10:30 pm to get eggs so that we could make our brownies. We made our brownies in the lounge while watching Kill Bill. They were delicious and completely un-nutritous.
     Later we watched Rocky Horror picture show. During this time, we had several people leave to go to sleep and a few more just fell asleep where they were. In the morning, Sam and Nicole made bacon, eggs, and bagels. I grabbed a blueberry muffin and a fried bagel on my way to the train.

Portillos, Pot, and Palm Tree

     I came in from class today and started heading to my room. Justin intercepted me and said that we were going to portillo's. We took the CTA bus route 18, rode the red line, and walked four additional blocks to make it to Portillo's. It was worth it. After that, we walked the distance back, took the redline, and then transferred to the blue line.
     Leaving the Blue line, we went to Harrison field and saw Kid Cudi in concert. The air was permeated with the smell of pot, and we were glad to have fresh air when we left. The concert itself was good, and we received free soda.
     The palm tree in our room has yet another function: greeting people. It was left near the doorway and would play its music as people entered. One person tried to kick it across the room out of annoyance. This was well after the frisbee was thrown down the hallway.

The Quad

     The Quad is a magical place that signifies the center of East Campus. It is also where the UIC fun fair took place today. Every organization on campus was there to promote their club. I was invited to join the African student council, I found out that we have a mechanical engineering fraternity, and I saw kid get booted off of a mechanical bull.
     I waited in line for free funnel cake for about 15 minutes, but it was worth the wait. I was invited to three christian groups, a Jewish group, and given a muslim newspaper. I lost the newspaper and the laffy taffy I got from the UIC housing table. There were also sno cones and people with temporally blue stained mouths.
     The Quad contains several lecture centers. One of them is my Calculus 2 class. The professor is a crazy brilliant person, so he often diverges from the lesson at hand. We were discussing the area of a circle, but soon found ourselves copying down the algorithm for solving the value of pi. We were told to look into this more on a computer. I didn't realize that computer programming knowledge would be useful for my calc class. Oh well, that's life.

Paradox

      This word has a strange connotation with it. Obviously, it is NOT two doctors (pair of docs). A paradox is the idea of two truths that contradict eachother. In my class on good and evil, faith is described as what happens when logic ends. To understand faith, you must understood that it can not be understood.
      Another, more tantalizing paradox is the pasta in the dining hall. There is a full tray of pasta put out every dinner. To the right, is a tomato based sauce; creamy pesto sauce on the left. Both are appropriate for penne pasta. They do not, however, belong together. The combination would not taste very good. This is how the idea of a paradox works.
     The movie Inception is full of the paradoxical. This allows the "architect" to move and manipulate reality within a person's dream. A staircase that eternally goes up and down is an example of this idea.

www.sciencejunkies.com

Skype

     The usefulness of this application is nearly immeasurable. Skype allows you to communicate with anyone in the world through your computer. I have spoken to my girl friend, Kory, through Skype several times while away at UIC. One time, I recall playing a game of Monopoly with some people while the computer was placed on the couch. Every thirty seconds, she would start chiming in and announcing how no one should accept any of my business offers.
     Jack finally gave into the hype of Skype (hey, that rhymed) a few days ago. One of the the first things he did was play the card game, Magic, with one of his buddies who was in a completely different town. They both leaned their laptops downward in an effort to help each other to see what cards had been placed on a table. Earlier that day, Jack and I had a Skype conference. We were in the same room about ten feet away from each other. We also learned what happens if you put two "Skype-ing" computers next to each other and put the volume up all the way, every sound made will echo back and forth between the computers. If the computers are too close, however, a high frequency sound, similar to when two microphones get to close to each other in a stage or concert performance, will occur.
     Victor was Skyping for about four hours the other day with these girls from ISU. He gave them a tour of the room by turning the laptop 360 degrees around. I ended up introducing myself, and they commented on how they liked my hats. I commented on how I also liked my hats. The conversation didn't get much further than that.

Public Transportation

     Every UIC student is given a U-pass, a plastic card that allows unlimited access to all that the CTA has to offer. This includes busses, subways, and as an added bonus, various performers since there aren't any cops in the subway system to tell them to stop. One guy basically had his fingers flying across the guitar to make this ridiculously awesome sound. Another had a microphone and rapped over the voice of the original recording. A woman sitting in the connection between the Red and Blue lines was playing rather sad tunes on an acoustic guitar.
     China Town was an exciting experience. It was actually the first time I had ever taken the Subway. I bought a hat in one of the shops for eight bucks and was quite happy about it. Today, I came home on the Metra. Before that, however, I took the Blue line to LaSalle Street. Victor and Kimi decided to see me off on the train today. Victor, once again, is my roommate. Kimi is a very good friend of his and tends to spend more time in our cluster than some of the people who actually live there. We got lazy on walking all the way to the Blue line from JST. So, we got on the nearest bus that was caught at a red light. Immediately after the light, the bus turned right; we needed to continue going straight. There was a stop, fortunately, twenty feet from the intersection, and we got off the bus laughing at how badly thought out that plan was. Victor and I agreed that it was Kimi's fault.
     As we neared the Blue line (we were walking and not bothering with the bus), we saw Nate, another one of the guys from our cluster. We convinced him to join our journey to the middle of the city. He didn't put up any argument. As I was about to get on the Metra train, Victor and Nate were giving me advice like "Be safe" in an effort to sound like parents sending their child off on a trip. I thanked them and referred as dad and mom, in those respective orders. Kimi was busy making comparisons to Harry Potter and the train station. I said my goodbyes and got on the train to return home for the next forty hours.

Simple Firsts

     During our math discussion, we introduced our TA to a graphing calculator. Our TA is a genius at math and had always done everything without the use of a calculator. He moved to Chicago about two weeks ago from Mexico City and is still learning concepts such as knowing that a Freshman is a first year student, a Sophomore is a second year student,  and so on. He was absolutely amazed that this little device could find the derivative  or integral of a given equation.
     For a desert at lunchtime, I had a rice crispy treat that was made out of Lucky Charms. So, it really wasn't a rice crispy treat at all, but it sure looked like it, just more colorful.  
     My roommate, Victor, Turned in his first assignment for his Architecture class today. He had to arrange a specific pattern of dots over and over again on a page until the dots filled the page. In addition, these dots had to look like a solid object when viewed from a distance. He had to do this eight times. Well, the assignment he turned in was eight parts, but he had easily made twice as many pages to get the patterns right. I think he used all the ink in more than two pens in the last two days.
     Other important firsts:
- A girl on the fourth floor heard Bohemian Rhapsody yesterday.
- I donated blood and got free UIC flip flops that say, "We donate blood" on them.
- We now have a wall decoration for the cluster: A map of the bus routes around campus.

New People

     So, I was introduced to a group of Indian girls yesterday. I was minding my own business, eating my cereal at 11:30 at night, when giggling started. When I asked why they were laughing, they all pointed to one girl. They then went on to say that she was desperate to make friends with white people and that she was tired of all the brown people she knows. I thought this was funny, but I went right back to eating my Lucky Charms and chocolate milk.
     Today I met a guy from the Yemen. The country of Yemen is a small country in the Middle East. It makes the "heel" of the boot that is taken up primarily by Saudi Arabia. His English was very good, but he had no idea where he was going. I helped direct him to Taft Hall.
     There is this awesome person in our tower named Milie. She likes zombies, turtles, and ear lobes (don't ask me why, I honestly don't know). She also likes folding laundry. She offered to fold my laundry for me today. I started to think about my 40 minutes of folding work and quickly said yes. She finished in less than 15 minutes. I am currently devising a thank you note for her.
 

Rant

     Our room has two bathrooms. One of them has a puddle in it. There is no dripping from the ceiling, no leaking from the toilet, no apparent path from the shower, and no obvious uneven ground. The residents of this room from last year say that the mutant puddle has been there since January. They are also convinced that the water contains various diseases (this claim is very ridiculous). To actually get to the toilet, you have to jump over the puddle and use the door frame as a support for your jump. In addition, One of the bathroom lights are out (same bathroom). This, however, is not my bathroom and does not affect me. All the guys really have to do is fill out a work order form, but that has yet to happen.
     My roommate and I never close the blinds to our dorm. Our room has a wonderful view of tower C and the Lobby, and that's about it. We figured there was no point closing the blinds since we are hardly there anyway, and neither of us figured that any crazy stalker would watch us in our sleep. Besides, we want to try to be friendly to the other residents. One time, however,  a guy in our cluster started waving at a girl across the abyss (it's not an abyss in the slightest, but I think it's a cool word) while she was unpacking or something. That room has yet to open their blinds. That was a failed attempt but oh well.
     The musical palm tree in our common area was almost thrown against the wall because of it's constant playing. Needless to say, the motion sensor was deactivated. It was also in the commons area that I had the idea to run for programming chair of JST. The position entails coming up with events to get people involved on campus and socialize with others in the building. One idea in particular is Monthly Fried Twinkie Night. This event will occur because of the great people in my cluster despite my election to this position or not. If I am elected, however, JST will pay for the event (twinkies) and not our cluster; not to mention how many more people will be able to participate in the event. Only the future will show how JST will change, but it will hopefully involve free food for us.

First Day

     My English class, my first class, is on the third floor of Taft Hall. As I walked up the stairs, I noticed there were crowds of people waiting outside their class. The same was true for my class. I thought this was odd, but waited anyway. Eventually, a girl knocked on a door, received no answer, and then walked in. Ten seconds later, everyone started making a mad rush for their own classes to avoid being seen as the gullible freshman who waited five minutes in the hall way for nothing. It was later that I learned that two of the people waiting were actually sophomores. Go figure.
     After four or five minutes of silence in the classroom (the professor would not be there for another five minutes) I broke the silence, "Hey everyone, are we really going to be this quiet for the rest of the year? I'm Jeff, and I just can't stand the silence anymore. Talk to each other!"
  "Hi, I'm Peter", said Peter as he was midway into the classroom."
  "Ok, has everyone met Peter now? Now that you know each other, talk!" There was a polite laugh, and then the class did something quite remarkable... they actually talked to each other. In all, the class looks like it's going to be good.
     Next up was chemistry discussion. We met with our TA (teaching assistant) for the first time. The class, however, ended up being about six minutes long. This incident occurred on behalf of the fact that it was 10 A.M. on a Monday and none of us had attended our first Chem lecture yet. So, I went back to my room and had my first Easy Mac of the semester.
     The last five hours of class went about as fast as the car that fell off of the bridge in the movie Inception. After that, I got food in the dining hall and piled it up due to the fact that I was so hungry. When I got back to my room, I was welcomed by a light up, singing palm tree that has now become the first official decoration of our commons area. One day down, many more left to come.

Sitting

     After a lot of moving around campus, it is good to just sit and relax. This was a good mind set due to the fact that today was convocation and a large amount of sitting took place. After each of the three major times I had to sit, everyone who had to listen to the presentation were awarded by food. The LAS town hall had various sandwiches and delicious brownies. The Honors college gave out different desserts and fruit. The official freshman meeting gave you boxed meals. I took mine, went to my room, and ate it in about three minutes.
     More sitting took place in groups. Whether it was the floor meeting, playing Call of Duty, watching You Tube videos, or seeing a small turtle in the middle of the room try to commit suicide by crawling off the table. Fortunately, he was caught every time.
      Classes start in the morning and I'm tired now. I can hear that about three people just entered our cluster. I'm not envious of the people who don't start class until eleven whereas I start at nine; I just wonder why they are having a detailed conversation about Panda Express at 10:30 at night.

More New People

     Friday was the honors college picnic. We broke out into a scavenger hunt. We had to get proof of each spot by taking pictures. This resulted in our group sprinting to each place (in flip flops) to try to win the ultimate prize: a gift certificate to jumba juice. When HCAB (Honors College Advisory Board) had done this hunt, it took them about an hour. We managed the whole hunt in under 30 minutes. We didn't win, but it was awesome to jump fences, run up escalators, and eat jimmy john's afterwards.
     At this point, it was becoming obvious that our room was the home to not just the eight of us, but the home of about 20 other people. It is very rare for any of us to walk into our cluster and not see someone else there. Earlier today, we took about 15 people around to meet every single room in our tower.
     We have an open door policy and let any one come on in and eat our junk food. One of our cluster mates is allergic to wheat. As a result, we have a gluten free, four day old  chocolate cake. At this point, the 6lb. bag of gummy bears has been completely devoured. Tonight, we fried a bunch of twinkies while watching Everybody Loves Raymond in the lounge of JST Tower D.
     Tonight was also the late night target run. They shut down target at 10:30 to give us free food and soda while we bought school supplies at discounted pices. It somewhat felt like black friday as people piled in through revolving doors that stopped only when arms and legs were temporarily stuck.  Overall it was a great night.

First Things First

     I am a Freshman at UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago). For everyone 40 and over: Circle Campus. I am a Chemistry Major and just moved in on Wednesday. I'm strange, and you'll learn to get over it. Okay, the boring part is done.
     So, move-in was interesting. Plenty of other people were shoving every single bit of their belongings into a large bin on wheels. Housing staff were everywhere, moms were crying, and dads were carrying armfuls of their daughters' clothes... which were dragging on the ground. My dad decided to invest in this little industrial cart to help us. We managed everything in one trip.
  
(awkward 9 hour lull of books, financial aid, and nothing-ness)

     Soon after, my cluster mates (similar to roommates, just more of them) and I started playing the card game slaps (or egyptian rat-screw for you politically correct people).As we spent our time playing cards, we ate snacks. One snack in particular was a six pound bag of gummy bears that my mother had bought at Costco. I don't see them lasting for a whole week.
     One of our cluster mates was not there at the time. His name is Jackson Hill. We were all under the assumption that he was a big black dude. I remember walking into the lounge to see a skinny white kid playing the guitar. "Hi, I'm Jack", he said. It took a while for me to realize that this was Jackson.