Not a Very Cohesive Post

I will, however, try to at least be coherent. That's about all I can do anymore, as I've used just about all of my energy to survive this week. Since all the big projects are done, all I have left is showing up for classes tomorrow. Finally, I can sleep!

But in the midst of this, my life has been filled with so much blog-fodder that I feel compelled to write about it. Firstly, a note to all who may not have noticed: I added a new link, to a LiveJournal blog written by Emily, a friend of mine from marching band and pep band.

In fact, I made Emily's day today. You see, "today" is her half-birthday. I say "today" because her half-birthday is 31 November, which, for those of you who don't look at calendars, doesn't exist. So I sent her a little message declaring that 12:00 on 30 November to 12:00 on 01 December was equivalent to 31 November. So part of today and part of tomorrow thus equal "today." And she's actually been celebrating this nonexistent day.

Now some of you may be thinking that that's hardly fair to her. Well it isn't. Life isn't fair. My birthday is such that I get stuck sharing my half-birthday with the founding of our nation; hers has one that doesn't exist. That's just the way it is.

Which brings me to my next point: I've finally sorted out my friends from the Carolinas whose names begin with E. Emily is originally from North Carolina, and Eleanor is originally from South Carolina. Perhaps the dots on this map will help should I ever get the two confused again (heaven forbid!).

Switching to something completely unrelated, the Rice Avenue Community Public Library's site received its 1,000th hit on Sunday 26 November at 20:02 ET. I later found out in an email that the librarian decided to set all of the library's public terminal's homepages to the site "so that people were aware that such a page existed." Awesome. It's only been up for eleven months! But I can't complain. Technically, now that I don't need community service hours for anything, I get no benefit from maintaining the site whatsoever other than the satisfaction of knowing I'm helping out a local organization in need. And the best part is, I can still do it from here, too.

Pitt's men and women are both 7-0 in basketball, and the men are ranked second in the nation according to the latest AP poll. That's exciting. As for a possible bowl game in football, I mentioned that it was extremely unlikely. There is still a chance however, that we will be selected, but I'm really not holding out any hope. If you care though, the selection show is on Sunday 03 December.

Which is Laurel's one-year anniversary with her boyfriend. Early congratulations are in store for that. And that reminds me: I thought I got through another Friday the Seventeenth without anything bad happening. I mean seriously, I survived a monster CHEM exam, aced a PHYS quiz, and both basketball teams won in a doubleheader... all on the day that is usually the worst for me.

Well, guess again. As I'm sure most of you have heard by now, my girlfriend and I have broken up. It was pretty much in the works since Thursday 16 November, and it was confirmed on Monday 20 November, our would-have-been six-month anniversary together. However, it was over long before then. According to an email sent to me on Friday 24 November, she "started to like someone" and didn't want me "to come home and find out [she] was with another guy." Okay. Fine.

But here's the interesting part: The next time I saw that she was on AIM, I saw that she was away. So I checked her away message. It was a direct insult at me. And below it, in her profile, in the same font and color as my name had been for nearly six months... a new name, and the date "11/17/06," which conveniently was also the first day of the FootSteps weekend she was attending. So my difficult week was more difficult than I'd originally imagined, and I didn't even realize it until a few days ago.

Next Friday the Seventeenth: 17 August 2007. A wonderfully refreshing eight and a half months away after a year that had three of them. And coming full circle, the last Friday the Seventeenth (back in March), was Andrea's half birthday. Isn't it amazing how stuff works out like that?

I'm really surpised it's almost December. This semester has really flown by. And I have a feeling I'll be saying that a lot.

Random tangent: There is no random tangent. Seriously, this whole post has been random tangent. The last thing you need is another one.

Turkey Day and Football

Well, I'm back at Pitt, after what felt like an all too short Thanksgiving Recess. Sure, everyone else got to leave Tuesday right after classes and not come back until a few hours ago. I've remained quite reticent, however, about my misfortune. I was stuck here until Wednesday morning, and then I had to wait for someone (and her sisters) to come home from school before we could leave for my lovely little hometown.

But of course, I'm only joking. It did feel weird, though, roaming the streets of Oakland at 11:00 and running into absolutely no one. It was like a ghost town (spooky). I had a lovely time with my cousins on Thanksgiving, and then with the other side of my family on Friday (the one with practically no cousins to speak of). Then I had to be back here for Pitt's football game against Louisville Saturday afternoon, which they lost, by the way.

Pitt thus finishes the football season at 6-6. I'm sure my high school would've liked to have finished this season with as good a record as that. And yet, as good as 6-6 is, it isn't good. I mean, it's only winning half of the games. Sure, we won four in a row early in the season, outscoring out opponents 169-27, but those wins were against teams like Toledo and the Citadel. Our most impressive win (if you could even call it that) was against Virginia in Week 1.

Some would call the loss to Michigan State a fluke, and maybe it was. I don't think anyone, though, thought Rutgers would be as good as they were. South Florida was underestimated, and you can chalk up the double-overtime loss to Connecticut as bad luck at the very end. West Virginia and Louisville were almost considered unbeatable from the very start, although Pitt put up a good fight in both games... at least in the first half (don't even get me started on that).

And so now we're here, ranked sixth out of the eight teams in the Big East conference, and though there are a couple games next week, it's mathematically impossible for our position to change as a result of them. So what does that mean?

Well, as one of my fellow trumpeters started singing as Louisville started to run away with last night's game, "I'll be home for Christmas." Some people say we're still bowl-eligible, but that's really not the case. A page on ESPN.com devoted to bowl possibilities shows that the Big East has six bowl tie-ins, but it also says that if the Navy is eligible, they would receive an invitation to the Meineke Car Care Bowl instead of the #6 team from the Big East. And guess what? That's exactly what happened, and they will be playing the #5 team from the ACC on 30 December. So for us, getting a bowl bid at this point would be a miracle... and totally undeserved.

Amidst the speculation that has pretty much ended was that we might go to the International Bowl in Toronto on 06 January 2007, the only college bowl to be played outside of the United States. Even as recently as Tuesday, people were projecting that Pitt would play Western Michigan there as the #5 team. I guess he thought that Cincinnati would lose, and that Pitt's pathetic second-half against WVU would somehow compel them to do better against Louisville. In both cases, he thought wrong.

So, that's about it from the college sports front. It's amazing that I'm actually following this stuff, given how confusing I find sports, but when it directly ties into your plans for Winter Break, I guess you'd be foolish not to.

In semi-related news, only two weeks until finals. My, where has the time gone? My last paper of the term is due Wednesday, so that's always exciting. Of course, it means I won't get much sleep Tuesday, but what else is new? And some presentation that apparently our parents have known about since June is due on Thursday. Good thing it's on the papers we've been writing. But I can't wait until I finally have my own computer next term so that I can caffeinate at the keyboard (beverages aren't allowed in the computer labs). It'll make working until 03:00 that much easier...

Random tangent: I hope you noticed in my last post that I went on a random tangent at the end. I think that's something I'd like to continue. After all, this blog isn't called Randomness for nothing!

A Difficult Week

Those of you who might be trying to contact me in the near future might want to know that this week will be extremely difficult for me. But what else is new? Allow me to elaborate...

I have a PSY exam at 13:00 today for which, thankfully, I have pretty much finished studying. Then I have a CHEM exam Friday morning. Okay, that's not that bad. But keep in mind that the Pitt football game against West Virginia is Thursday night. That sucks up my entire evening.

So I'll just study ahead of time? That sounds good. I'll take advantage of the fact I have practically nothing on Tuesdays. I won't be able to study much tonight or Tuesday night, though, with those nights being the only nights the marching band has left to practice. That, and there are basketball games Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I may skip one in favor of more study time; it depends on how much studying I get done during the day on Tuesday.

And somewhere in there I feel obligated to get some stuff ready to send home for FootSteps 46, which starts Friday. My girlfriend will be attending.

So basically, after the basketball doubleheader on Friday evening (which I should be able to attend no matter what), I'll be able to catch my breath on Saturday. But not for long... a MATH exam looms on Tuesday 21 November.

The moral is: If you try getting a hold of me and I don't respond, it's not because I don't care. It's because I can't care. It's not like I've fallen off the face of the earth. I'll still be here when this all blows over.

Random tangent: Wow, it's been a long time since I've had a moral to a post; I used to have them for like every post (1,2,3). Perhaps it's something I should bring back...

Purebred

I am a semi-celebrity in the band. Or, at least I was for a short time. With the exception of the trumpet section, most of them have probably forgotten about this by now, but I've been way too busy to write about it.

Anyway, both of my parents are Pitt alumni, and both played trumpet in the band, just like I do now. But apparently that's not a very common occurrence.

So right before band camp, our director gave his annual speech in which he asks students to look left and right and consider that their future spouse could be there. He said, "We believe in inbreeding" in the Pitt Band, and that that's what keeps the organization strong.

He then pointed to me as an example of a "product of inbreeding."

Now, most band members end up being given nicknames which they are generally stuck with for the rest of their lives. And traditionally, they get little to no input. However, my section leader was nice enough to ask me if I was easily offended. I wasn't sure, and he rephrased the question, asking instead if being called "Inbred" for the next four years would get on my nerves.

Um, yeah.

It took him another day, but eventually he came up with "Purebred" instead. Aw.

Some people call me by my nickname, others don't. But "Purebred" is all that "Kitty" ever calls me...