PENN-sieve

One of my collegues, apparently sad that I took two days off, wrote the following poem for me because she missed me.

My friend, Tracy

I have a friend named Tracy
She's sort of, kind of mean
She'll invite you over her house
But only if it's clean
She's a little bit laid back
And a lot sarcastic
And in her office if you move stuff
She'll be a little spastic
All in all she is good to have around
In periods of high stress
But don't be confused, she's a friend
But I wouldn't call her my best

This morning, KDN and I were working out in the Nat. Below us, practicing in the lap pool was the men's swimming team. Long and lean - perfect eye candy to motivate me to work out this morning!

KDN didn't think the team members were much to look at after they dressed but I am unsure what she was looking at. Even the coach was a hottie :)

One of the cool things about being at a football school are the nifty (but sometimes hard to understand their significance) little slogans that come out before game day. Citizens Bank puts out free buttons for all the fans that become hot commodities as it gets closer to the game.

For the Akron game, the slogan was "Retire Akron" which made little sense to me until someone informed me that Akron is home to a large tire manufacturer. Ha Ha - get it re-TIRE!
For the Notre Dame game, our buttons said "More Frightened than Fightin'" and a store on College Ave. was selling t-shirts that said "Beat Notre Dame - and send Charlie back to the Chocolate Factory. (Charlie Weis is the heavyset coach for the Fightin' Irish).

Our Youngstown button read "The Penguins Are on Thin Ice" (their mascot is the penguin). That was not as cute as the rest but I am looking forward to Thursday when the next button is released.

There are always so many activities happening at Penn State that I forget that it really is a small town - until when I needed to schedule to take the GRE and discover that the nearest testing center is an hour and a half away or I need to do some shopping and find out there is no Borders bookstore or Body Shop anywhere nearby.

Today was one of those days that started off bad and just snowballed into a miserable experience. I woke up this morning at 820 which means I did not set my alarm last night (or I slept right through it). Not only did I not get my morning work-out in, but of all days to be late there was an all staff meeting at 830 in the middle of campus (I live on the East side) and I needed to be presentable at the meeting. Yes, I thought I should call in sick - but no, I didn't. On my way out the door, I call one of my colleagues just so she can tell the boss I am on my way but my call wakes her so she tells me to give her 5 minutes and we can go together.

I wait and then she says I have the wrong location and we walk to where she insists the meeting is - but it wasn't (Why do I never listen to myself - I am ALWAYS right!!). We finally make it to the correct location and the only available seats are in the front of the room so we have to walk by everyone to get to our seats - no hiding that we are late!

Later in the afternoon, I go to give blood down the hall from my office. My appointment was at 2pm and I had a judicial meeting scheduled with a student for 330pm - plenty of time. But no, not with the way my day was going. First off, my right arm is prime for giving blood - I use it all the time and you can see all the holes from every time they stick me. The Red cross guy hits scar tissue and I can't think of a time that being stuck hurt more!

After they take the blood, I go to sit up and am instantly light headed and start to get tunnel vision so I have to lay back down. Then I start to sweat profusely. They give me ice packs and I lay for a bit and feel a little better. I walk to the juice and crackers table where they give me some juice and after I take two sips, I am told to put my head on the table, they yell for a chair and before I know it I am being moved to the "special" recovery area to lay down covered in ice packs while I sweat till my hair is soaked. Finally after 40 minutes of sweating and stomach cramps, I am better and I walk back to my office for my meeting which should have happened 5 minutes ago.

In my job, I have to meet with students who violate university policy. This isn't the first time I have met with a student (I have 4 years of experience!) but I act like a bumbling idiot, can't get the computer to work, and then ended up having the student sign the wrong forms. I had to track him down at his room later to get him to sign the correct form.

When the work day was over, I went home to lay down but was totally restless. I finally doze off but have to get back up so I can get things set up for my program tonight. We watched Survivor in the Cultural Lounge. I have to plan programs for the area that are cultural based and since Survivor was divided into tribes by races, I thought it was a good way to combine something I would be doing anyway with work.

I pulled out the popcorn machine and let it warm up. When I went to add the popcorn and oil the machine was smoking! I was so worried it was going to set off the building smoke detector! It didn't and we went with out popcorn for the evening. When I went to lock up the room, I could not find the key for the room. Thankfully, I found it behind the TV (it fell when I was hooking up the cable) because having to pay for a recore would have been an absolutely miserable way to end the day.

Today stunk and I am going to the place I should have just stayed all day - bed. Cross your fingers that tomorrow is better!

When you finish scholl, you get a graduation present from the company that gave you your student loan - no, they don't pay off your student loans for you but they do give you an additional 6 month grace period before you have to start making payments. So I should have had until November before I had to restart paying off my undergrad loans - COULDA SHOULDA WOULDA!

I was trying to be a responsible adult and get all of my banking info set up so that the loan payments would be directly withdrawn from my bank account. I sent in all the paperwork early. Then after doing my budget for the month I decided to send in a payment now. But boy did I get a surprise this week - not only did they process the "EXTRA" payment I sent in but they went ahead and did a direct withdrawal for a regular payment too! Two student loan payments in one month! Yeah, you guessed it, now I am broke!

I am reading "Psychology of the Hero Soul" It's supposed to be a book on encouraging everyone to live up to their full "hero" potential. I am only about 40 pages in so it hasn't been life shattering yet but there have been some interesting stories of well-known, successful heroes. Here is an interesting paragraph from the book:

"We live in a wimpy world. We live in an age of constant fear. People are afraid, many fear death, and many more fear life. Few people have the courage to show their true passion. Even fewer are willing to take a stand for a cause. Many pseudo leaders don't do what they say they are going to do because they have no honor or integrity. Their soul is asleep.

Corporations, today, have lost touch with the human soul. Profit is king while people its slave, instead of the other way around. People are just expense reports and nothing more. There is not enough compassion in the workplace. The soul has been taken away. There is no loyalty, no honor, no respect. Only low morale, mistrust, and growing resentment towards those who control but do not lead." (pg 16-17)

Today, I was working out at the Nat. (abbreviation for the Natatorium which is just a fancy word for the building with the swimming pools). The Nat. Fitness Loft has cardio machines overlooking three pools. If you look real close in this picture you can see the Loft on the left side of the photo. I was riding the bike and looking at one of the pools where a father was playing toss in the pool with his son that had Down's Syndrome. The son would throw the ball to his father and then would mimic how his father caught the ball. If the father dived to catch the ball so did the son. It was so cute and made me happy!

Everyone here wears galoshes. It must be an east coast thing but it prevents you from ruining your good shoes or getting the bottoms of your pants wet. Today a girl got a package in the mail and her friends were all excited to see her new galoshes! You better believe I will use this reason to justify my upcoming trip to buy more shoes.

Worried about what new TV shows you should watch this season? There are always a ton of new shows that look good but it is hard to decide which ones to watch and which ones to miss. Take this "scientific" test to get a few recommendations.

http://television.aol.com/feature/fall_tv/photos-quizzes/personality-quiz

According to the test, I should watch Heroes and Jerico. I was definitely looking at Heroes as a possible new show to watch.

Of course, I will be watching Survivor on Thursdays. I think it is very risky to divide the tribes by race. This could be a great social experiment or it could become a huge setback to the quest for racial equality.

This video is so cool. Look how they move on the treadmill. I want to do this!

Someone stole my bike. I am very sad. I bought my bike at the RHA Bike auction for $12 in California. It has been to Indiana and Pennsylvania. I hope the person who stole it takes it someone nice.

Penn State internet access is as slow as dial-up.

You may have learned that the Earth revolves around the sun but in the Penn State world, we revolve around Beaver Stadium - home of Nittany Lion football.

Three or so weeks ago, I was eating lunch in the Commons and noticed everyone stopped eating and watched a student get his food and sit down. Who was this student? Paul P., defensive linebacker. The people watching him then had a conversation about what he was eating!

Today was the first home game of the season (PSU vs Akron - we won!). Normally this would have been the second day of move in but since it was a home football game, we had to change arrival to Wednesday and Thursday. While we are a "student focused university" (one of the institution's goals according to the President), we made all the students who were parked in the Flower Garden Lot (the one closest to the stadium) move their cars by 4pm on Friday or they would be towed. We had to make room for the tailgaters!

The stadium seats 107,282 people - it is the second largest sports stadium in the country (missed first by a little over 1,000 seats). Normally an additional 100,000 tailgate so they say on football weekends, State College becomes the third largest city in Pennsylvania. Football tickets sold out quickly because we won the Orange Bowl last year. Our student section (voted number 1 in the country) only seats 20,000 so all the students did not get tickets - their season pass costs $180. I was assigned with two of my colleagues to plan alternative ways for our students to watch the game. We organized a big screen watching event complete with prizes and food.

The game started at 330pm so I awoke this morning and wanted to go to the gym. Now if all of the gym facilities are at capacity, only 400 or so people can be working out - 400 people not watching football you would think that would be okay but you would be wrong. The fitness centers do not open on football weeekends until after the game!

It's raining and while normally I love rain, right now I am sad. On Sunday, we were supposed to take the RAs on a overnight retreat to Golden Pond. While I have been on many RA retreats, I was really looking forward to this one since I have never been to Golden Pond. But it was raining (rained all day as a matter of fact) so we had to cancel the retreat. :(

Tonight, we were supposed to have Football Eve which is a huge event that happens in Beaver Stadium before the first home game. I was looking forward to sitting in the stadium (since I don't have tickets to any games this season and seeing the football team and Joe Paterno but of course it was raining and while I was still up for sitting in the rain, the university thought that it would not be a good idea to have a group of students in a large metal stadium while it was lightening (is that even a word?!). There didn't end up being any lightening but I suppose the school had to play it better safe than sorry.