October 2008 Archives
I know it’s very late, and I should be sleeping, but I was up late, studying for a couple midyears that I have tomorrow. I hope I’m not scaring any prospective students because most of my friends don’t even think that my math and politics midyear will be very difficult, but just to be on the safe side, I usually try to throw in some extra studying in. Since I was up late and had things to write about, I decided that I would blog about things that happened recently.
This past Wednesday (October 22nd), there was a Hip Hop Live concert, with stars such as David Banner and, one of my favorite rappers, Talib Kweli. Tickets were 10 dollars if you bought them before the concert and 20 at the door, which is cheap considering David Banner and Talib Kweli are very well known and famous rappers. Since money is scarce in college and I didn’t buy tickets beforehand, I ended up not going to the concert. A couple of my friends that did go said it was amazing and everyone at the concert got free Sony headphones. I’m kind of jealous that I didn’t go, but anything that saves money is O.K. with me.
On Thursday (October 23rd) there was a captain’s meeting for all intramural sports from 9PM-11PM. In efforts of staying in shape, getting ourselves involved around campus, and just for fun, my friends and I decided to create an intramural soccer team. Last time I played soccer competitively was in middle school, but I’m pretty confident I still have some skills left. The team consists of 7 players, including myself; 3 guys and 4 girls, and our name is “The Incredibles”. We’ve all had previous experience playing, so I’m sure we’ll do at least an O.K. job on the field. Our first game is this Thursday at 9:30PM, which is late, but I’m more of a night person myself anyways.
Friday (October 24th) was the first hockey game, which
is a big deal around campus and to most students. Before the game there was a
BBQ, and any food freeing me from my 14 meals a week is welcome. 
My friends and
I all had all gotten Mohawks for the game a couple weeks earlier, but we
decided to shave them off after a while because we didn’t like them. Before the
game started, we all painted our entire upper body to be true super fans, and
were extremely excited to be the loud and boisterous cheerers. Much to our
displeasure though, we soon came to find out that shirts were required in the
Tsongas Arena. We had our shirts off for 2 seconds before we were told by a
worker that they prohibited such activities, but we were given a voucher for
free popcorn and soda for our efforts. Putting that aside, the game was fun to
watch, almost all of UML was there to watch, including alumni and parents, and
to make it even better, UML defeated
Providence 4 to 1.
This weekend was open house weekend and I’ve seen flyers around campus about the different activities. My parents aren’t coming up this weekend, but there were some events that I was interested in, so I decided to drag my friends along with me to check it out. A couple of my friends’ parents came, but just going with my friends and without my parents was fun too. It turned out to be entertaining, there were many activities for both young and old. There was free food, horseback riding, a rock wall, free pumpkin decorating, professional artists that did caricatures, and plenty more. CAPA was handing out free live fish in tanks that you decorated yourself, and I ended up getting two fish that I named Tonka and Katie. I was told by an R.A. from Leitch that they had fish as well last year, and her fish lived until May.
This past week was a pretty eventful one, packed with activities. I’m looking forward to my first intramural soccer game this Thursday, and will definitely write about how that turned out. But now, I must head off and get some rest before my midyears.
Till next time,
-Hai
I’ve heard that going home is exciting and all; nice home cooked meal and a place to do free laundry, but it wasn’t as great as I thought it was going to be. It was fun seeing my old friends again, since they were all home for Columbus Day weekend as well. I was able to work a lot on Saturday and Sunday at my old job, which was nice since I find myself scrapping at the bottom of the barrel for money. Seriously, college kids go through a lot of money. I was never homesick, and even now, I don’t really feel homesick at all, but seeing my old town and all the sights again did make me reminisce on past memories. When I wasn’t hanging out with my old friends or at work, I found myself sitting at home, bored. I left Saturday morning but ended up coming back to UML Sunday night because I just felt so much more comfortable here. After talking to my friends, I saw that they felt the same way. If you got bored at home, you really had nothing to do, but I always found myself with something to do here at UML.
As I was writing this, a couple of events occurred. Some people I know were caught with alcohol in their “dry” dorms a couple weeks ago, and I just got a phone call about their suspension. They were handed the “letter of death”, delivered by an RA. They got a three day housing suspension, meaning they can’t enter any of the dorms, and they really don’t know what they’re going to do about housing. I feel bad, of course, but at the same time, they shouldn’t have had alcohol in the dry dorms.
As I was talking on the phone, I had to step out of my room because my roommates were playing video games, and when I looked out the window (my room is conveniently at the end of the hall by the window) I saw a crowd of people standing on the third floor of Leitch (the building right next to mine). I called up a friend of mine, who lived on the third floor, and he informed me that a fight was going on. I thought it was something serious, but it ended up that two kids were horsing around just wrestling.
The first couple days here, only freshman were on campus, and there were a lot of activities and free things available that was sponsored by the Campus Activities Programming Association (CAPA). There was free food, hypnotists, obstacle course races, and many more fun things to help make the incoming freshman meet new people and feel at home.
Walking up the stairs to my dorm, I can always see flyers for new CAPA sponsored activities that really aren’t too bad. Sometime in October, the 12th I believe, there is a trip to six flags, but the event that really got me excited was a CAPA sponsored concert coming up on the 22nd of October. Talib Kweli and David Banner are both famous rappers that are coming to perform in the UML Recreation Center, with tickets only 10 dollars! I’m not much of a fan for David Banner, but Talib Kweli happens to be one of my favorite rappers of all time, since he focuses his raps on lyricism and is a lot more political than other rappers. He doesn’t really do “gangster rap” and is mostly known as a political rapper. He’s been around for quite some time now, and is definitely up in the well-known rappers category, so tickets being only 10 dollars for students came as a major surprise for me.
For anyone interested, flyers are all around Leitch and Bourgeois, and tickets are available in the Student Information Centers on North & South Campus. Pricing: $10 for tickets, $20 at the door, and $30 to non-UML students. I believe tickets are available online at www.umltickets.com, but I was having a bit of trouble earlier ordering from the site.
