Creation of a blog

My first post in my new blog. What a week this has been. First of all, this was registration week for classes in the fall. What this means is that as soon as the online registration opens, the server is swamped with people desperately trying to get their schedules exactly as they want them, and to get into those hot classes that fill up faster than you would believe. This then causes the much inadequate server to run like molasses in January. I logged on at midnight on Monday when registration opened, and I was done by four am. I am very pleased with my choices, however. This year I will be taking:

1. Applied Anthropology
2. Religion, Ritual and Magic
3. Rites of Passage
4. The Anthropology of Mass Media in a Globalized World
5. Philosophy of Sex, Love & Friendship
6. Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World
7. Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
8. History of Anthropological Theory
9. Kinship, Marriage and Gender
10. Abnormal Psychology or Cognitive Psychology (still debating this one)

Phew! What a load. Still, this looks to be the most fun year yet (with the possibly exception of the Theory course) and I am tremendously excited. In addition, I managed to schedule the fall term such that I have both Mondays and Fridays off. Am I loving the idea of a four day weekend every weekend? You betcha.

I am a part of the campus walk-safe program, and have been on patrol two nights a week. I've also learned that I made the cut for the fall and winter terms, and also to participate in Frosh Week. Frosh week is sure to be absolute insanity. It starts out with a weekend retreat for all the volunteers and then immediately into Frosh Week, ending only 3 days before the start of classes. This will be a straight 192 hours of Frosh. Intense. Right now we're in the process of getting clothing organized and cheers invented and games created. It's havoc, but it's exciting. We have our first giant walk-safe get together a week from today, and it's all anyone in the club can talk about.

Last night I went on what can only be described as the Worst First Date Ever. The guy was completely uncommunicative. I felt like I was talking to myself the entire time. When he did decide to talk, it was to question me (in a rather scornful tone) about my schooling. Apparently he dropped out of high school and has been working in a factory ever since making what he described as "good money". Therefore he doesn't see why anyone should be in school, nor does he understand why anyone might actually enjoy school.

To make an already impossible date worse, he'd taken me to hear his brother play in a band. Normally I'm all up for that. I like live music. What he'd failed to mention, however, was that his brother plays in a heavy metal band. Heavy Metal. Now, normally I can at least appreciate music, even if I don't particularly like it, based on the skill involved, and harmonies, and all that, but there is absolutely nothing musical, in my opinion, about a guy screaming into a microphone over top of irregular drum rhythm and screeching guitars.

In addition to the terrible music, he kept buying me drinks, which I did not want and could not convince him not to buy me, and so much of my night was spent finding inventive ways to get rid of drinks without his noticing. These included dumping them in the bathroom, leaving them on counters, having the bartender pour them out for me, leaving them outside on one of the innumerable smoking breaks (that's right, he also smokes - ick), and passing them off to already very drunk strangers.

All in all, a fairly terrible night. I probably should have left far before I actually did. So if you notice that I'm screening my calls for the next little while...you know why.

Tonight I'm on walk-safe patrol. I'm very much looking forward to a calm night of monopoly and walking with friends, sans the heavy metal music!