Don Rags

Mr. Decaen said I was doing very well in lab, and clearly preparing for the classes well and thinking about the readings, but that even though some people in the class needed to be told they were wrong, I might be able to do it more charitably. His closing words included, "Mr. Ruedig has a sharp mind, and also a sharp manner."

Mr. Collins said I was doing well in seminar, and also was paying more attention to the text and asking deeper questions, and had improved since last semester, when I was already doing well. He also said I had a very good oral final, better than he expected, in fact.

Miss Zedlick said she was dis­s­a­poin­ted after hearing all the praise from the previous two tutors with my performance in Latin, because I was doing average work, not really better or worse than last semester. It doesn't seem that studying makes that much of a difference then, because I've been working really hard on Latin lately, and still getting the same grades. Bleah.

Mr. Clark said I was doing very well in math, and clearly had a mind suited for it and a solid foundation in mathematical concepts and thinking. He did say that he caught me unaware with one prop last semester, but it hasn't happened again, and that I should keep up with my preparations for class and not slack off.

Mr. Wodzinski didn't have the nicest things to say though. He knew I was bright enough, and he didn't think it was a matter of not preparing enough, but that I appeared apathetic in philo­sophy, like I didn't care enough to pay attention or talk. I admit this is actually kindof true, because we had a few really bad classes, and it's been hard for Will and I to care about much since, because a few members of our class make it very difficult to speak in this class particularly, since they dominate the conversation, and are extremely stubborn and obfuscate excessively. But I'll be trying harder there definitely.

Dr. McArthur said that I had been making some good points in Theology, and when I spoke, I was very clear and had good logical thoughts that showed I was investigating the text. He said he liked it so much that he thought I should talk more, and be more of a leader of the conversation.

So I got stellar rags from Mr. Decaen and Mr. Collins, fairly good ones from Mr. Clark and Dr. McArthur, but not so great from Ms. Zedlick and Mr. Wodzinski.

Ninja Dancer

Or, as Duffy referred to him, "The Super Secret NINJ4 Dancer of Doom."




Ninja come to "Asian Mardi Gras" Dance not unprepared.




















Ninja must have fan club.















Ninja also must dance with pretty girl to show off her pretty dress.













Ninja blend into background in order to better show off pretty girl.

We have the Weirdest Couples on this Campus...

More Rugby!

Well, we had an awesome turnout of 6 people at rugby practice today.
Just enough for a short 3-on-3 game., which was ridicuulously fun. It just consisted of run, tackle, rut for the ball, run, tackle again, grab ball, run, be tackled, run, tackle, run, tackle, without any break except for scores, which were every 5 minutes or so.
We ran some drills for 45 minutes after that, running plays, tackling eachother, and other such fun.

Teh Uber-Geeky Box of D00m

Last night I was fed up with having to deal with all the cables for my computer, plugging them in every time I moved from my room to the computer lab, etc. SoI took some supplies up to David Six's room, where he had that staple of geeky projects....
(heavenly chorus please)

DUCT TAPE

...along with some helpful advice.
I took a small box, about 6x8x10 inches, and put my 250GB External HD in there, along with its power and data cords. I then put in my laptop's power cord, and my wireless mouse dock, along with its data cable and charger. Then I put in the charger for my iPod, and cut out a long square on the top of the box, and duct-taped a power strip upside down on top of it, and plugged the 4 power cords in from the bottom. Then I cut a small rectangle out of the bottom of one side of the box, and pulled the data cables and power cord for my laptop and iPod out of it, after taping them inside to the box, so they wouldn't come out to far. Then I covered the box with duct tape (for that uber-cool geeky look), and fashioned a handle out of a few peices of cardboard (for support in the middle) and more duct tape (which truely does have 1001 uses). Then I made it tso that the top of the box can be secured with a couple flaps of duct tape, and then created a pocket on the side for my iPod, with a slit in the bottom so that it can charge while resting there. I then made another small flap of tape on the side to hold my earbuds nicely when they're not being used, so they don't tangle. I was also able to fit a mini USB light and my iPod data cable inside, and poked a small hole in one side so that my HD's blue LED shines out.

And so it was done.
I'm quite happy with it so far, it saves alot of time and hassle, and was quite fun to make.
And it gets some interesting comments too.

Rugby!

I just got back from Rugby practice, and I must say, it's one of the funnest games I've ever played. (And yes, I do know that you can't find "funnest" in the dictionary, but I think it sounds better than "most fun" so shush.) It's like the lines of football with the speed and soccer, and no rules!
Ok, so it has rules, but none on tackling people, holding them, throwing them, and in general beating other guys up. But because there aren't any pads, we learned how to tackle properly, without hurting ourselves on the other guy (well, not hurting him much). We didn't exactly have enough people to play a real game, but we had a lot of fun doing tackling drills and running passing plays.
The tackling drill was a version of "Smear the Queer", where one guy tried to break through a "d-line" of players spread across the field, and whoever tackled him then tried to get through going the other way, requiring the d-line to reform very quickly, which is a necessary skill for a Rugby team since there aren't any breaks between plays like football.
Then, for the passing plays, we line up on the field diagonally, because in Rugby, you can't pass the ball forward, you can just lateral it behind you. SO the point of the passing plays is to run up the field bouncing the ball back and forth in order to confuse the defenders. So the guy at the top of the diagonal throws to the next guys, and so on down theline, while we're running up the field. Of course, there are variations to confuse the defenders, like passing back, or looping around. It was funny to hear Hank Zepeda was shouting the names of the plays across campus, because two were named for tutors (Nieto and Letteny), and the third in honor of a student who was killed in an accident shortly after graduating the year before last (Jean Frances). After sprinting back and forth across the field for 45 minutes, we were all pretty exhausted, so we ended with a bit of passing drill. Practicing rugby passing is kindof strange, just underhanding the ball to one another, and tricker that it first looks, but it's fairly easy to catch on. At least when you're standing still. While running at full speed, keeping an eye on the defenders, and twisting to see the guy behind you, it's a bit more difficult.

Hopefully though, we'll get enough guys to dedicate their time so that we can form a team to join a local league, which would be really fun.

And beating other guys up for awhile can be very therapuetic.

St. Valentine's Day

Today to classes, then after classes I went out with Mose, and Will ( my roommate) and his gf Michelle, since he really wanted to take her out, but didn't feel comfortable going alone, and three other couples backed out, and I'm good friends with Mose. We went to a really nice Chinese Restaurant, with very decent prices, and a cool fountain in the middle. The four of us had a great time, and even met a graduate of TAC who was working at the restaurant.

After we got back I had a seminar on Dante's Purgatorio, and we ended up talking alot about love, and true love, and selfless love. We focused on a quote where Dante first meets Beatrice, his first love, whom he betrayed in a manner of speaking, and we discussed his love for her, and how it was imperfect, and whether or not human love could be perfect. This also tied into happiness, because she rebuked him for approching the mountain, "because you know here men are happy." Some people thought that seeking happiness was wrong for him, because he had rejected her, and his religion, but I was more fo the mind that he was rebuked because he had not approched this happiness in the proper way. It seemed disordered, in a way, that he who would come to heaven should pass through Hell, the place without any hope of heaven.
However, even we had to cut the discussion off, we were told we would get to discuss some of the same things next night.

Finally, after seminar there was a fun dance in the Coffee shop till curfew.

Sick

That's mainly been the story of me for the past few weeks. I've tried to miss as few classes as possible, which means that some that I've gone to I've been completely dead, and not really gotten anything.
However, we are learning that the planets do indeed go around the sun.
Because of magnetism.
Betcha didn't know that.