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.