I'm led to believe that pandas lead a very peaceful existence

Current Mood: isolated
Current Music: "Graduation Day" by Chris Isaak

Show: Relay For Life benefit performance
Venue: Purdue intramural fields (can be seen from my 6th floor window at McCutcheon)
Audience: ~30 sleepy RFL participants
Fools: 6
Comments: The Fools kept themselves up to 3am over at Shreve playing a devilishly simple but fun game I'd never heard of before called Apples to Apples. This was all for our 4am show in the middle of the night (morning? we never quite ironed that one out) for Relay For Life, a 24-hour walkathon to honor cancer victims, survivors, and the fight against cancer. In a solemn pre-show moment, I signed a giant cloth for my grandfather that died from lung cancer several years ago. It was my first show at Purdue and I was paired with the other new Fool, John for the opening act. Our Two Person Story was "Dancing Heights" (a combination of Dances With Wolves and Wuethering Heights) and went very well, which set the tone for a hilarious show, despite the fact that the audience was barely awake for suggestions or laughter. I also managed to acquire the nickname "T-Rex" during this process.
Unofficial winner: Not cancer.

Despite the heavy workload of the past week, I've managed to maintain a positive outlook on things, partially because of the weather, partially because of improv. Hilarity is a great counter to the monotony of engineering and calculus. Finals are only a few weeks away and then I get to go home. While this also means going back to work, moving, and waiting a month for most of my friends to finish school, it's something to look forward to at this point (along with family, a new set of adventures, Gold Star, Star Wars Episode III, and my 19th birthday, among other things). I'm also super excited about seeing my sister, brother, and father at Improv Fest this weekend, as well as performances by the Ship of Fools and the Tower Players.

Speaking of the Fools, Captain Paul Kuliniewicz recently gained fame submitting the halting problem to Dinosaur Comics. Ashley also invited me to go horseback riding when she found out I've never even been on a horse before.

Meeting the end of the semester has got me doing a lot of self introspection about just how much has changed in less than a year. I feel a lot older and have an expanded view of the world that once was contained to one small Ohio town. I feel like the core things that make me me haven't changed, but there are a few other things that have, for the most part, improved. Jason's leaving to go to Northwestern over the summer most likely, so we started talking about all of this over an essay prompt...I'll probably write more about it closer to finals.

I snagged an interview later this week for a job to work at Hillenbrand Hall next semester in the fall. It won't be bad to go downstairs for a few hours a week and get paid to file papers and do my homework. Make a few bucks on the side (something I need to start worrying about more). I'm not at all nervous about the interview- the Fools have been taking the stage fright out of me in large pieces. Paul told me that "if you can go on stage and make people laugh without any sort of thought in your head before hand, it's a piece of cake to go and give a speech with notecards."

Whoops, I think I just did that thing where I don't enjoy something just for the sake of doing it.

Saw the national competition for the Rube Goldberg Machine contest on Saturday with Alex. Purdue Society of Professional Engineers blew away the competition with two flawless runs. 150 steps just to change the batteries in a flashlight. Teams from places like Arizona and Michigan came to witness Purdue's finest. It made me proud to be a Boilermaker.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this I managed to win over my English teacher. After I limped into conferences on Thursday (having injured my ankle falling off the bus earlier that morning going to calculus) and explained that I was swamped with three exams (physics, calculus, and chemistry that I just finished today) in one week, among other things. She's now extended the deadline of my Napoleon Dynamite paper twice to Wednesday (from last Friday). Be it pity or reward for never missing class, I was surprised that my teacher was so reasonable and willing to be flexible. After this paper we begin our final project, a conference of papers on films of our choice. I think I'm going to do a study of the portrayal of genetics in film.

Just remember: friction is a "touchy-feely" contact force.