Another Week, Another Post

Yet another daily post delayed 6 days. This weekend was filled by crew obligations and in the bustle of midterm week, I guess I've just forgotten to archive my life and thoughts in digital form.

The Team competed at the Head of the Rock Regatta in Rockford, IL this weekend and the novice 8 took 5th out of 20 boats. No hardware to come home with, but considering how little time on the water we've all had, rowers and coaches alike were pleased with the results. For your pleasure, I've linked the results for the whole regatta here.

This race was really a big one and we left Saturday afternoon and spent the night in Illinois. After a delicious dinner at one Marquette alum's house, coach Jim drove us to another to spend the night (and also get breakfast the next morning!). It really made me realize how tied people stay to Marquette, since these people weren't even former rowers. Both families came to the race the next day to cheer and brought food. I couldn't even believe how nice and generous they were.

Monday was marked by yet another crushing defeat of the Strabbotsford Pro-Hoes and Joes (pause of anguished sighs). Luckily we secured our playoff birth 4 weeks ago when we registered so all thoughts (all 2 minutes worth of them) are turned toward next week's tournament. We will persevere.

I had my first and only midterm of the semester today in English class: 8 short essays worth of fun that went better than I expected them to. That means that I basically just have to coast for the next day and a half until I hit FALL BREAK!

On Thursday I am taking the train into Chicago with rower Tom and getting hauled around the city to all the best sites (and food stands). I will spend the night in the suburbs at his house, return to the big city on Friday, visit with a friend at U Chicago and then head over to Evanston for the rest of the weekend. Northwestern will be the site of my second 3-way Free Spirit Reunion of the year, during homecoming no less. I am, in a word, excited beyond all belief.

The rest of the night will be filled by Comm Studies (vomit) and a Battlestar Galatica viewing party sponsored by Dr. P for my Honor's Seminar. Not only do we get to watch the miniseries for class, he's buying pizza for the 12 of us!

A package from home came today that may have the cord I need for my camera, and if so, expect lots of pictures of Chicago in the coming days.

Qualified Success and New Seasonal Experiences

A brief update on the success of everyone's favorite collegiate crew team (that'd be Marquette).

This weekend we competed at the "Tail of the Fox" regatta in Depere, WI, which is just west of Green Bay, about 2 and a half hours from campus. The novice men's 8 (a boat with 8 rowers, all of whom are in their first year) took second in a 4 K race with a time of roughly 4:10. I rowed in the 5th seat of the boat (number one is in the bow...now visualize) which is two seats further up the boat than I usually sit. We beat a team called Qrew Chicago, which is a novice team of older people...we think. No one could quite figure out just what their deal was (college, professionals, community team, random collection of people found on a street corner?). Michigan Tech beat us, which engendered some good natured competitive anger. We'll see how that carries over to this week's race in Rockford, which will be a lot bigger (12 boats in our race...gasp).

In other sporting news, the Strabbotsford Pro-Hoes and Average Joes lost their second game of the Intramural Coed-C League soccer season by a crushing score of 3-1. We were worried about our playoff potential, but then we remembered that all the teams make the postseason tournament, so we just got ice cream instead of fretting.

(Note: the name of the team is derivative of the names of the two dorms represented- Straz Tower and Abbottsford Hall. "Pro-Hoes and Average Joes" comes from "Honors Program - Pro Hoes- and the rest of the team who are Average Joes).

Quote of the Day: "Mother-Son is not a good thing" -- Dr. Spargo's commentary on sexual pairings and their acceptability in society during our study of Oedipus Rex.

My digital camera now officially has a charger, but still no USB connection cable. That means that I could be taking pictures of Marquette, but you wouldn't be able to view them without coming down here. If you came down, you could just look at Marquette...in real life, making the camera still pretty useless.

To those of you in Alaska: Its still in the 40s and 50s down here...I've been watching the weather in Anchorage and the Schadenfreude is almost unbearable.

Lastly, they have fall here? Who knew? Apparently its a time when the leaves turn colors in between summer and winter. More updates on this "new" season to come.