JesterDon IVVVI
Secretly Sinister
Posts: 4008
Age: 19
Fuji Bucks™: 5397
Reputation: 189
 | | Omg college | |
Welcome to my College Blog!
 8/19/11 - | Spoiler: | | | Hello and thanks for visiting. I am finally up here in Nashville after a two-day road trip with my sister and am waiting for my parents to arrive here by plane. I will be blogging about my life in college periodically on here as y'all are the only people i know who actually care. Okay thats a lie but w/e. Move-in for freshmen is tomorrow morning and I'm meeting my roommate tonight. Also, don't expect any decreasing activity by me, college students live on laptops.
SO the trip. My sister (who also goes to vandy) wanted a car this year as she is a senior, so we drove up there while my parents moved my brother into his college. We split the trip up into two days, houston to little rock and little rock to nashville. The driving the first day wasn't that bad; my sister felt sick but she's always "feeling sick". After 9 hours we finally made it to Little Rock and stopped at a lovely Holiday Inn. Had dinner and crashed asleep. Second day we left the hotel and about half an hour through the trip we hit rain. Rain turned into a storm. a Bad one. It was scary. At one point it was just an unbelievable barrage of rain drops the size of golf balls and i was terrified out of my mind. My sister was driving and honestly that was kind of a good thing. So we passed the rain, crossed the mississippi, and stopped for lunch in Memphis. We had no idea where we were going but we randomly found this lovely little neighborhood with a bunch of restaurants and found this great place called Westy's. If you ever go to Memphis, I highly recommend it. It's near the big pyramid. Anyways so we kept driving and got to Nashville okay. Helped move her in, spent the night in her suite, and now am waiting for my parents to get here so i can go to the hotel. Then I move in to my dorm room the next day.
There is a stretch of five days where I am sleeping in a different bed every night:
8/16 - My bed in my house in Houston
8/17 - Holiday Inn in Little Rock
8/18 - Futon in my sister's Suite in her dorm building
8/19 - Hotel in Nashville near Vandy
8/20 - My dorm room
Anyways, tomorrow's the big day. |
8/20/11
| Spoiler: | | | Wow, incredible day. Woke up early, left the hotel to get to campus by the scheduled move-in time at 8 am (-_-). So we got there, and a bunch of students they call "move crew" helped move me in into the top floor of my dorm. Meant to say that i met my roommate last night and he is very nice. He's definitely gonna help me be more social this year. I had my first meal at college with my parents and sister, then was running around moving in, going to Target, visiting the Engineering building, etc. Throughout the day i was meeting different people and even made a couple of friends at one point. Things are looking good, and was terrified that I wasn't gonna be able to meet anybody. Its gonna take a while for me to get used to things around here but once I do it will be very smooth. Classes don't start until Wednesday so I have a while to chill and go through orientation. My parents leave tomorrow so that will be kinda sad. Next update either tomorrow or Wednesday |
8/22/11
| Spoiler: | | | Day three. Still in "Vandycamp", the term used to describe all freshmen activities prior to classes starting on the 22nd. Things are going awesome. I'm starting to bond with the other guys on my floor, my roommate is helping me meet a ton of people, and I noticed I'm saying hi and talking to people on a simple walk from main campus to my dorm. Making some potential friends is a lot easier than I thought it would be. Everyone here is so nice and polite, and the campus in general is beautiful. I'm starting to get to know my way around campus, especially where my classes are going to be, fortunately all in the same area. I met a lot of engineers today, met my advisor, fixed my schedule, all that jazz. Apparently, the acceptance rate for this year into Vandy engineering was about 7%. That really stroked my ego. Anwyays, tonight i'm meeting with my "VUcept group" (too long to explain), having dinner, then having a special fancy ceremony called the Honor Code, where each student signs the Honor Code i guess.... idk. Then there's a movie on the big quad in the freshman living area (called the commons) and I'm gonna try to be social and see if I can get a couple of friends I made yesterday to sit on the lawn with me. Can't wait for classes to start in two days!! |
8/25/11
| Spoiler: | | | Classes have started and I am busy as SHIT. Funny thing is, all of my classes are concentrated in this very small time period.
My MWF Schedule is as follows:
-Math at 8:00
-Spanish at 9:00
-Chemistry at 11:00
-Engineering at 12:00
-Computer Science at 1:00
Then I can finally go eat lunch at 2. The one hour break between spanish and chemistry is kind of nice i guess but its still tough.
On tuesdays, all I have is a chem lab, and on thursdays a 1 hour chemistry "discussion" which is like tutoring, meaning that day is pretty much off.
All of my teachers seem great, except my comp sci teacher but I can deal cuz its a large class anyways. My spanish teacher is very intimidating and assigns a shit load of homework but I made a very good first impression on her..... i hope so anyways.
Did laundry today for the first time! Got all of my spanish homework done at the same time too, right now I'm really on top of everything and I sure hope it stays that way.
First weekend is coming up. I'll let you know how that goes but don't get too excited, I'm not a huge party person. Anyways, gotta go call my parents, sorry for the brief update. Untill next time! |
9/02/11
| Spoiler: | | | Hey, sorry its been a while since I updated this. Things are finally becoming routine here for everyone and all the craziness of moving into college is over. The second week of classes just ended and I am doing just fine. I am meeting a good number of people in my dorm and in my classes, and went to the first Hillel event. (Hillel is the main organization for Jewish people on most college campuses). Tonight I am gonna go to the services and show off my Vanderbilt kippah. Tomorrow is our first football game and all the freshmen get to rush the field, so I am looking forward to that. College isn't as exhausting as I thought... there is a lot more free time than I thought there would be. Which I guess is a good thing but sometimes it gets kinda boring, especially on weekends. I'll try to update the blog again on Sunday but depending on how much homework I have idk. Anyways, untill next time. Please comment! |
9/14/11
| Spoiler: | | | Wow, I can't believe that it has been three and a half weeks already. Move in day seems like just yesterday, yet my memory of it is such a blur. Since my last update things have only been going uphill. I'm starting to become closer to a lot of the people who I'm meeting as friends, and I'm getting a good hold on all of my classes. I guess now I'm finally starting to realize why college is such an amazing experience.
On Friday I went to the frats for the first time. It was kind of cool. Didn't enjoy it THAT much but I can see myself going again and enjoying it in the future. Definitely not gonna join one of them though. Instead, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna join the engineering fraternity. This isnt like other frats; it is one of several "professional fraternities" on campus that still has social get-togethers, but ones that aren't huge crazy parties filled with morally questionable actions. Besides that, I am thoroughly enjoying Hillel and go to like every single one of their events.
Saturday was pretty cool. I went to our second football game (the first three are all at home) and we WON AGAIN!! This is almost unheard of in Vanderbilt's history and our football team just got a new head coach and is expecting a major turn around in the next few years. Hopefully we will finally escape the trap of being the doormat of the SEC.
A lot of the things I say are kinda abstract so I'll amuse you guys with a story:
This really attractive and nice girl recently became friends with me and now I talk to her every day and see her almost every day. The first time she was in my room we were doing math homework alone, and i swear to god she was flirting with me. First, she asked if I was dating this other girl which is just an indirect way of inquiring about my relationship status. Then, she kept trying to flatter me by calling herself stupid and me very smart. And when she made the comment "Well you know, daniel... sometimes girls are attracted to really smart guys..." it was kind of obvious. SO. The next day as we're leaving math, she gives me this pen! A pretty nice one too! As a gift... for like.... no reason. The day after that she's in my room again to work on math, and we start getting off track and talking about other things. One of the first things she says, she asks me "Daniel, would you ever consider dating a girl who wasn't Jewish?" Nervous, I replied "Well, yeah... I guess I don't really see anything against it". So she looks at me and says................ "Oh. I would never date a guy who wasn't Christian."
>_____________________________________________________<
So yeah... thats my disappointing story. HOHWELL!
This weekend is Family weekend. My parents are coming up and Im gonna be spending a lot of time with them doing various things. Cannot wait. I really miss them.
I have some homework to take care of so thats all for now! Please leave comments/questions below im more than happy to answer them! Peace out. |
9/29/11
| Spoiler: | | | Finally updating this again after two weeks. So since my last update.... my parents came in for Parents weekend and it was nice to see them. I had my first fancy meal since the night before move-in which was nice. After my parents left though, my week turned into a total wreck. First, I wasn't invited to pledge into the professional engineering fraternity i wanted to join. The bright side though is that I can still go to events and try again in January, which I plan on doing. Also, I had a disastrous chem lab where I had no idea what I was doing, kept messing up, and broke an expensive piece of glassware. Not a good day at all. The next day I woke up sick, just in time for my Chemistry mid-term. Joy. The rest of the week wasn't that bad besides being sick and I did fine on my test.
For my Civil Engineering class I get to build a building out of K'Nex. But its not just YAY LETS BUILD A BUILDING OUT OF TOYS YAY FUN. The building has to be able to survive earthquake-like conditions on this thing called a shake plate, and each team has to make a design with a limited number of pieces, and has to consider things such as height, architecture, floor space, stability, cost, etc. It's definitely the coolest assignment I've done here so far.
This sounds kind of strange, but the week flies by for me while the weekend crawls. I think its because I'm never really stressed out during the week with my classes, and during the weekend I don't have any classes to go to. Seeing as I'm not too into partying and getting wasted like the other 95% of people here, weekends aren't as exciting as you'd think. And when you add the fact that I like doing most of my homework, I can pretty much safely say that I prefer the week to the weekend, as crazy as it sounds. Also, I got invited to a party this weekend... guess I'll update y'all on how that goes.
Vandy was finally handed their first loss of the season in football. We lost to USC (south carolina) 28-3. And if you think that's bad, our next game is against Alabama.
I'm off to go get a haircut then work on a Spanish paper. Got Rosh Hashanah dinner tonight at Hillel. See you later! |
10/17/11
| Spoiler: | | | I'm gonna stop staying "It's been a while since I updated this" as it seems like I am averaging about once every two weeks now, which is fine. Things still going great. I feel like I've finally found my niche of friends, which is a huge relief. Two weekends ago I went home for Fall Break, which was from Thursday to Sunday. It was great being back in my house and I got to see my family and some of my friends. Coming back felt very strange but now things are back into their daily swing.
Don't read this paragraph if American football doesn't interest you. Heartbreaking loss for Vandy football on Saturday against UGA. We had been losing to Georgia by one or two scores for the entire game, but we kept fighting and making a comeback, and it got to the point where there was 1 minute left in the 4th quarter, we had the ball on our own 20, and the score was 28-33 them. A couple plays into the drive, we throw an interception. Everyone thinks the game is over, so everyone starts to file out of the seats, but my friends and I decided to stay and watch untill the very end. This turned rather interesting. We had two time-outs, and UGA tried to run the clock down as much as they could with simple running plays. Thanks to a penalty and our time-outs, they ended up 4th and 21, with 15 seconds left and the clock stopped. People at this point weren't even watching. They line up to punt it back to us, and out of NOWHERE, we block the punt!! The ball goes down to the ground and there's just three Vandy defensive backs with nothing in front of them but the ball and the end zone. I don't know how or what happened, it all happened so fast, but we weren't able to pick up the ball and run it into the end zone for the win. We picked it up and somehow fumbled it, and it was downed at around their 30 yard line. The joy of blocking the punt and the anger of not getting the simple TD to win it cancelled each other out, and everybody's face was nothing but pure shock. It was literally unbelievable. We had seven seconds left on around their 30 yard line, and try a passing play into the end zone. The receiver got his hands on the ball but couldn't hold on to it. Yet another sigh of despair, but their was ONE SECOND left. We try the same thing again, they blitz, the QB has no choice but to throw it to a tight end who's at about the 15, and he's inevitably tackled. Game over. It was painful to watch. We should have won.
Today in my Comp Sci class, the teacher asked all 80 something us who had started the first major section of the project, which we've had over two weeks to work on and five until its due. I was the only one who raised my hand. Really, people? In high school I was always one of the most hard-working people in my class, but I didn't think that would hold true at one of the top accredited universities, but apparently it does. Keep in mind that I'm one of the only freshmen in the class as well, most are upper-classmen.
I got to meet my roommate's identical twin brother this weekend. He came up for the football game. They look EXACTLY alike, and act exactly the same as well. My twin brother and I, on the other hand, could not be more opposite. Anyways he was cool. The days fly by like no other with the amount of work I have to do, I don't think 2 months have ever gone by this fast for me. But I'm enjoying it and thats all that really matters.
Btw, if y'all have any questions about the college application/decision process, you can ask me that as well. That's all for now. |
11/01/11
| Spoiler: | | | Fall is setting in and the trees are starting to turn beautiful. In Houston, "Fall" is a 2-3 week period in which there are tons of clouds and slightly bearable weather before utter freezing temperatures and leafless trees. I got a bit sick but it didn't stop me from having an AWESOME weekend. To start things off, my dorm had a haunted house for other people in other houses to come and go through. Three floors were blocked off with black butcher paper and given various themes (Saw, zombies, and the last one was just bloody people with weapons). My job was to be a planted actor; I went from floor to floor with the groups untill the first floor where I was brutally kidnapped into a room and "stabbed to death". People who didn't realize I was a planted actor got freaked out. The whole thing was awesome and a whole lot scarier than I thought it was going to be. Then my friend who goes to University of Arkansas came up for the football game (which we just BARELY lost, again very frustrating) to come see me which was nice, I only get to see him about once a year.
First semester already coming to a close (cant believe its gone by this fast). Next week is when I register for my classes next semester, hopefully will get everything I want.
Making more friends here and starting to get close to my best friends. Really enjoying it. Getting involved. College rocks. This weekend I also went to a corn maze and one of nashville's most famous restaurants.
Pressed for time so im gonna have to go. Cyall later. |
11/19/11
| Spoiler: | | | Home for Thanksgiving break. It's good to be back and I've already seen a few of my friends. Vandy gives us the whole week off, unlike most colleges where people don't get off untill like Wednesday. Sooo lets see whats been going on.... I got all the classes I wanted, which was nice. I have a digital logic lab (whatever that means) from 7 pm to 10 pm on Monday nights... thats gonna be interesting. Such a relief though, so many of my friends didn't get the classes they really really wanted.
So it turns out I might be going to Argentina this spring break with Hillel. Which would be AWESOME because I went there two summers ago. So I can't wait to go back.
I already miss my friends from school, lol. I've been texting all of them and I'm already kinda looking forward to coming back... But its THANKSGIVING!! woo. I am so freaking ready to stuff myself with turkey, stuffing, cranbello (look it up), and my aunt's delicious chocolate pie. Aww man its gonna rock.
Recently i've been wanting to rant a lot about the general student body at Vandy. But I'm too tired and in a good mood to do it right now so next update I guess.
I finally finished my Word Search program for my computer science class. I had to write a program where you can play word searches, make your own word searches and then play those. It was haaaaaard. The final length of my program is about 1400 lines of code. But its awesome. I played it for like an hour on the plane ride back because I was bored.
Can't think of anything else to write. Hope all of you are enjoying your lives right now. Post a bit about your lives on here if you want. Until next time! |
12/11/11
| Spoiler: | | | Finals week. Yayy! All quiet here at Vandy pretty much. I've never seen so many people studying at once. Tomorrow I have my Spanish and Chemistry final, then on Thursday I have my math final (hooray for line and surface integrals!) Anyways, I go home AGAIN on the 16th, and I'll be in Houston for about a month. Can't believe almost an entire semester has already gone by. I'm like, already an 1/8th of the way through college if you think about it. I really don't know how much studying I have to do for the finals; I do all these practice problems and pretty much have everything down. Chemistry is gonna be tough. I should probably study for that one more.
Anyone else paying attention to the Republican primary? Yeah Perry is an idiot, but what about the others? I know im the only one here who can vote next year but still.
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12/27/11
| Spoiler: | | | DONE with the first semester of college, and all I can say is, wow, that was fast. I got my grades in, all A's except two B+'s (fuck you, chem lab and mechanical engineering). Needless to say I am very pleased. I am enjoying a VERY relaxing break that involves no more than seeing friends, getting presents, and playing Skyrim. I have nothing to do over the break school wise so it's nice to give my mind the rest. That being said i am PUMPED for next semester at Vandy and can't wait to go back. Now for a collection of random thoughts:
Room to myself for a few days as my brother is on a cruise with his girlfriend and her family. Lol.....
I was at a bookstore a few days ago and remembered that my high school sucked and never made us read 1984. As that is a very compelling, timeless novel that everyone should read and most college students already have, I decided to buy it and am currently reading through it in my free time. It's fascinating; scary but fascinating. It's the first book not involving chemistry or calculus that I've read in several months.
Got all my presents, and now have to write thank-you notes. FUUUUUUUUU.... But the presents were nice. My parents got me this really fancy Tommy Hilfiger fleece that I plan to wear like every day cuz its so comfortable. I also got several gift cards and cash.
Vanderbilt is going to a BOWL GAME!!! That's right, it's our 6th bowl game in our 130 something years of having a football team. We're playing in the Autozone Liberty bowl against the Cincinnati Bearcats on December 31st. The game is in Memphis so we should have home field advantage. Hoping we'll kick their asses.
Not much more to say so hope everyone had a merry christmas and has a great new year! |
1/30/12
| Spoiler: | | | Finally updating this again. Second semester has come and settled in. My classes and professors are great, and supposedly by the end of the year I'm going to be able to make a rudimentary microprocessor (we'll see how that goes...).
Pledging has started here at Vandy. Everyone who wants to join a frat has to spend multiple hours at their frat house and do tons of time-consuming activities, on top of hazing. So glad I'm not doing it. My roommate joined a frat but his is a bit more academically inclined than the rest you could say...
Got some bad news last night. I wanted to join the honors fraternity (nothing like regular frats) and was pretty sure I was gonna get accepted, as I went to every rush event I could, was very outgoing with all the members, and did great on my application and interview, but in the end didn't get a bid. That's really been getting me down today, cuz this is the SECOND time this year when an extra-curricular I really wanted to join did not offer me an opportunity to join (they can only take a limited number of people). On the bright side, I got an interview for the Honor Council (student panel of "judges" to make decisions of cases where students were caught cheating, plagiarizing, etc.) after submitting my application, but that's even less likely to pan out the way I want it to. I hate the way my extracurriculars are going this year. I only have one (Hillel, the Jewish organization), and I don't even like it that much. Every time I try to join something else that I'm sure I'll really like and meet a lot of people through, I get nothing. It's frustrating the hell out of me. They say that if you just try, you'll find great student org's that you love and meet so many people through and I get NOTHING. Half of the other freshman in Hillel don't even know I exist. I can try for the honors fraternity next semester, but I might not depending on what happens this semester. More to come about this soon.
Too much negativity in this post so I'm gonna spare why I was in such a bad mood last week for a later one.
That's all that's going on now. I'll get over the rejection thing in a few days probably.... hopefully. |
2/28/12
| Spoiler: | | | All right here we go. This semester has been getting a lot better since getting rejected from the honors fraternity. I got past the interview stage with the Honor Council so now I have to be elected on by the student body to get a spot. Meaning an election. Yeah, it's serious shit. I'll let you know how it goes but I'm not too optimistic.
My classes are getting TOUGH. I have a physics test tomorrow and I'm lucky if I get a B. Fortunately we get to drop one test grade so this will probably be the one. My favorite class is digital logic, which is basically learning how computers work on the most basic level. It's the first "real" engineering class I've taken and it's awesome. Math is hard but I'm managing an A. Spanish I decided to audit (meaning I just sit in on the lectures; i don't get a grade or credit so i don't have to do the homework) which made my semester a lot easier, if I hadn't I would've been screwed this semester. Comp sci is still pretty easy. Next semester I'm going to be taking the same types of classes (circuits, physics, math, comp sci, and spanish), but I won't be auditing spanish, and the Spanish course is going to be a SHITLOAD harder than this one. So next semester is going to be a huge stress-fest.
Not sure if I've told y'all yet but I'm not coming home for spring break. Instead, I'm going to Argentina with Vandy Hillel. Since I've been there before for those of you who remember, I'm SUPER STOKED to go back. But I won't be on fuji for a whole week, so just letting you know now.
Also I've just been pretty happy these past few weeks. Not sure why, but my bad moods that I had at the beginning of the semester are gone. Probably because my schedule this semester is pretty light compared to other ones, so less stress. Can't think of anything else to write right now, so wish me luck on my remaining two tests this week. |
4/01/12
| Spoiler: | | | Lots to say in this update. So much has happened!
Y'all already know about my trip, but I'll describe it a little bit. It was for a week in Argentina, kinda far from where I stayed the first time I went there but I went to a lot of the same places. It was through Hillel, the primary Jewish organization on campus. The trip focused on community service and experiencing the Argentinian Jewish community, which was truly an amazing experience. I never got to see that part of the country the first time I went there, and being able to was really inspiring. We also got to do some sight-seeing (I had already seen most of the important stuff), and then at night we got to go out to clubs/bars/the like. Drinking age is 18 there, and the entire group would go out together. This led to some interesting moments that those of you who are friends with me on Facebook might have seen via photos. (Sucks to suck jordan, this is why you don't delete me on fb). I was a bit concerned about the trip at the beginning, because I didn't know a single other person going, and there was only one other freshman. Almost all of the girls on the trip were the stereotypical sorority girl type, and all of the guys were older than me (and in frats). But a few days in, I started to reach out to them and get to know them. As it turns out, when you're in a foreign country with them for a whole week, they're really not that bad. We had a purim party (purim is a very festive Jewish holiday) with another Hillel group from Penn State and argentinian natives which was SO fun, and personally my favorite part of the trip (verified from the photos). When I came back, I was legitimately sad for a couple days that the trip was over.
Also as you all already know, I made my school's honor council. FINALLY. After the application process, the interview process, and the election process were all finished, it must have been at least 5 months for the whole thing. We had one training session but besides that things haven't really started for me. They will eventually. I'm pretty excited.
My parents came up to see me last weekend, which was really nice. They took me to get real food (a luxury in college) and we saw my sister's choir performance. They also drove me to the movie theater so I could go see Hunger Games with my friends (great movie btw if you haven't seen it yet).
I'm really starting to like Vanderbilt now. I know I've said I really enjoyed it in the past but I feel like I'm finally starting to fall in to my niche here. Sounds crazy, but I kind of want the year to just drag out longer. I'm starting to get involved with a new group of friends also so I don't want to go back home in a month.
And finally, classes are still going well. Next semester is going to be my first really challenging semester, so I'm expecting my GPA to drop a bit then. Ho well. That's all for now. |
5/13/12
| Spoiler: | | | FINAL UPDATE OF THIS BLOG.
Now that it's been a year, I think the point of this blog has been fulfilled. I hope I've given y'all some insight about what college life is like. I might post occasionally via comment about what's going on but this will (probably) be the last official update. Anyways...
I finished finals on the 3rd and left for home the 5th. Then I came back on the 10th for my sister's graduation, and also moved my stuff back into storage. I got back for good yesterday. Some of you may ask why did I not just stay up in Nashville for those few days. I could have, but since everyone is gone I would have been bored as shit. I told my parents that they did not have to spend the money for the plane tickets to fly me home but they said it was not a problem.
Finals went well. My grades on them were 100, 99, 98, and 76. Not sure what happened in Physics. I left my calculator in my room by mistake but that's not the reason I did so poorly. Not complaining though, still managed an A- in the class. My GPA right now is 3.93. If I keep that up, I will graduate summa cum laude, or with highest honors. I can promise you that I will most likely not keep it up :p.
I had my first Honor Council hearing. It went pretty well. Everything is confidential though so I can't tell yall anything about it. Sorry.
Graduation was nice. The weather was beautiful and I got to show my family around campus. We also got to go the the Country Music Hall of Fame, which I enjoyed even though I'm not a huge fan of country.
I am already looking forward to going back. I don't know how I'm going to get through the three-month summer; I have an internship but it is only for 6 weeks. I already miss my closest group of friends incredibly and I'm not gonna be able to see them at all until mid-august :\
Well time to wrap this all up. Man I've learned so much this past year, in so many different areas. Academically, socially, about myself, and about the world. College is really an excellent environment, and just so y'all know, when it comes time to make a decision, you will most likely be happy WHEREVER YOU END UP. So what if you don't get into your dream school? I promise where you end up going you are going to like it. So many resources are thrown your way, and you really want to take advantage of them. Thank you all for reading my blog this year, and as always, let me know if you have any questions! |
Last edited by JesterDon IVVVI on Sun May 13, 2012 8:01 pm; edited 21 times in total |
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