I can't tell if this quarter is going to be really hard or really easy.

Considering I'm nearly halfway through, that's an interesting thing to have up in the air still. Some days, it seems like there is a huge amount of work coming down the pipeline for the remainder of the quarter. Other days, it seems like those projects coming up aren't such a big deal. Either way, I don't get too much free time anymore since I have now started devoting what was formerly free time to LSAT study. It's weird to actually be studying for somewhat of a "standardized" exam. I never studied for the SAT, WASL, anything like that, so it's strange to not be studying facts and equations for once. That being said, I should get into the progress on my classes. I have a bit more to say outside of classes this time around, so hopefully that will make this post a bit more interesting.

Business Ethics:
This class has turned out to be pretty cool. The professor is a really nice guy and I like that he actually makes you defend your point of view and reflect on why you feel that way about an issue. As we have gone through the quarter, he occasionally makes references either cultural or historical (or both) and generally, I'm the only one that gets them. There was the Ayn Rand example from my last post where I was the only one that had heard of her (although I was rather happy about that). I've since found out that there are some pretty hardcore conservatives and some libertarians even in that class, so I'm pretty shocked that they had not heard of Ayn Rand. It's just pretty sad. Recently, the professor referenced the HUAC. I knew what it was right off of that. When nobody else knew what it was, he said what the acronym stood for. Still, nobody knew what it was besides myself. When he finally explained what it did, about half the class seemed to realize what he was talking about. Its times like this that make me wonder what I could have done with my GPA if I had buckled down in high school if people like this are being passed through to college. And these are people that have been at the university their whole college career unlike myself. I guess at least I know I wasn't missing out on anything when I was at SCC.

Another fun thing in this class was that we were discussing Rawls and his theory of economic justice recently. For a critique to it, we also read an article by some Nozick guy who was a huge libertarian and basically stood against Rawls. Now the class on the whole is pretty liberal (as is the school). When the professor asked us all to raise our hands to take a side, he began with Rawls. I proudly raised my hand because his ideas made perfect sense. One girl in the front row sheepishly raised her hand to about her nose, then began to put it down quickly as she scanned the room. The professor then counted out the people supporting Rawls "One....two?...no? Only one?" I looked around the room and realized I was alone in my support of Rawls. Crazy. The professor decided that most of the class was probably undecided and went to see who supported Nozick. Aside from three people, EVERYONE ELSE IN THE CLASS RAISED THEIR HANDS. So basically, it was about 25 people against me when we went to defend our opinions. I think I earned some points with the professor for being able to defend the idea on my own against that many people. After that class, I think I should look into becoming a defense attorney after law school, it was pretty fun.

Break time:
Between that class and my next class, I have a huge break. I've started going back to the gym during it. I don't know if the gym usually is crowded during the day, but since I'm there at 10:00am, it's not an issue for me. The nice thing about getting there that early is volleyball is getting off practice, so I have to walk through them to get to where I'm going (very nice!) and there are a surprising amount of attractive girls working out when I'm there. There's generally always one on those machines that men agree is the most fun to watch (the leg spready one (I'm not a pervert, I swear!)) which is also nice (hmm, maybe I am...). I didn't know it could be done, but today, a girl actually used the leg spready machine AT me. As hard as it is to explain how someone can use an exercise machine AT someone else, you'll just have to trust me, such was the case. I wasn't sure on protocol whether I should follower her to the free weights when she got up and went to use them. I might have overcome my shyness (lololo yeah right) and gone to talk to her, but a more alpha-male-y guy went to go hit on her after she got up so I wound up not going over. Missed opportunity, she was actually pretty attractive too :/

After working out, I usually head back to a cubicle in the library and "do homework" which means I watch some videos then fall asleep for a couple hours before waking up for my next class.

International Political Economy:
It's going pretty well. A lot of the stuff we learn is foundational information for economics because of all the international studies majors, but she is able to mix in current events and the occasional new piece of information for us econ majors to keep it interesting.

Economic Growth:
I don't want to give the wrong impression, I like the professor and I like the class. That being said, the material of the first few weeks was terribly dry and given the time of day it was in, I had a lot of trouble staying awake. We recently had our midterm exam, so now the remainder of the quarter is spent on excel writing up our big research papers. My partner and I wound up choosing financial aid and its effectiveness. It's not the most original idea, but we are both really busy outside of class this quarter, so we wanted to pick something we know we could do and that we could possibly excel at.

Frisbee:
A few weekends ago, we had a tournament over in Cheney. Only 11 of us were able to go, so it was a pretty intense weekend in terms of our lack of subs. Despite the lack of players, it was pretty much the best group we could have asked for (only would have switched one guy out and one guy in(who was too sick to go)). We were actually going to have 13, but one guy had to stay in town for some reason and one guy got robbed the night before. It was funny to find that out because we all get the emails when something of a criminal nature happens near campus, so we had all heard about it, we just didn't know who it happened to. Also, the fact that it was that guy getting robbed helped explain why exactly he and his friends were smoking "cigars" (as the email claimed) at 1am. So for things like this, we usually rent a 12 passenger van from the school and one of the captains drives that. Unfortunately, he was sick and couldn't go, so the other captain was to drive. Now I don't want to be rude, but he is a terrible driver. Like comically bad. At least he knows it and doesn't mind us poking fun at him. In the email he sent the night before we left, he said "If anyone is certified by the school to drive, let me know since I'm probably not the safest option we have." I asked him how easy it was to get registered and as it turns out, it is very easy. Long story short, I wound up getting certified to drive by the school. On the way over to Cheney, he drove until Ellensburg because he didn't know that I enjoy driving or how good at driving I was. After I took the wheel halfway through the trip, I was the only one for the remainder of the weekend that was allowed to drive (it was a vast improvement haha). The motel we stayed at in Cheney was kind of sketchy (doesn't narrow it down, I know) and it was quite an interesting experience because we had 11 guys sharing 1 room with 2 beds. Needless to say it was pretty cramped. I did learn that I can dry my whole body with a washcloth though.

Oh hey shoutout to Davis here: Thanks for showing me around Eastern when I came last summer. I was the only person on the team that knew the area and it really helped to know where everything was. It was too bad we didn't get to meet up that weekend, but I don't know if the timing would have worked out anyway.

So the actual tournament went pretty well. We got put against the usual teams, UW B-team, WSU, Eastern, and then a team called 'Combo' that was made up of the best players at Eastern (since they had enough for two full teams) and some from Wilamette. Usually, we suck pretty bad at tournaments which is ok because this is a building year for our program. This time though, we had a pretty elite team with us. We beat UW in our first game and I think took them by surprise since they had rolled us in every prior meeting this year. After that game, we had a bye, so I went with two of the players who had forgotten their cleats and we went to Wal-Mart in Airway Heights (near Spokane) to get them a pair because they were slipping around in the first game. When we got back, it was just in time to start our second game. Our second game was one of the best games that whole weekend. Each team was guaranteed one game on the red turf at eastern's field. I had admired it back when I went with Davis in the summer and to get to play on it was really fun. We played Eastern's team on that field. Zack was on Combo as were all the Eastern players I knew, so this was just some rookie team. We almost bageled them, winning 13-1. It was a really cool experience playing on the red turf. For our third game, we played the combo team. This was the 'elite' game for the day since both our teams were 2-0 and at this point in the day were likely to be spots 1 and 2 in our division. We got off to a rough start then somehow found our rhythm and actually managed to beat combo in a pretty amazing game. I don't remember the score, but I know it got hard capped and we were only 1 or 2 points ahead when it happened. That was the highlight of the day (besides the red turf). Our last game of the day was against WSU. They brought their parents for some reason and their parents were super annoying. We had to ask them to stop yelling "travel" every time one of us caught the disc. We wound up losing that game, I don't know why. We should have won. At the end of the day though, Combo and us tied for first with records of 3-1. Since we beat combo though, that meant we got the official first place and the oh-so-sweet first round bye that came with it. We headed into Spokane for some Olive Garden, then went back to the motel after that. We wound up watching Return of the Jedi with me and one other player pretty much quoting the movie as it went (to the amusement of the other people for some reason).

On Sunday, we didn't do very well. We won our first game in a rematch against WSU. After that, we played Gonzaga who were pretty good. It got hard capped and we were down 3 or 4 points anyway, so it seems like they would have won. Overall, that means we got third place, but still, a rematch against combo in the finals on the red turf would have been amazing. It's too bad it never came to be. We left after our last game and just went straight home in one sitting since I was more than happy to do all that driving. After we got back, I was complemented a lot on my driving which was pretty cool and then I was told that either myself or the captain that couldn't come would be perma-drivers from here on out. That was also pretty cool. The other guy is a good driver as well, it's nice to be in company with him. Overall, this was one of those good team bonding experiences and it turned out to be fun because we had an elite group and did a lot better than we usually do.

Since the tournament, I haven't been coming to practice as much. There is one tournament left, but I can't go because I'm sponsoring Kathryn in confirmation (a couple of you just spit out your morning cup of coffee laughing at that sentence (trust me, the irony is not lost on our family)) and it happens to be that same weekend. It's all the same though, I've also been injured. I suffered a pretty crazy fall onto some non-padded ground on our indoor field (falling about 5 feet down right onto my ass) and my leg has been kinda messed up since then. It didn't hurt tonight when I went though, so I think taking the last week off really helped to heal.

Miscellany:
So yeah I'm sponsoring Kathryn in confirmation. It seems appropriate because she is just about as motivated to do it as I am. I can't wait until our whole family is confirmed, then we never need to go to church again (that is TOTALLY how it works ;)).

I've found that I am really retarded when it comes to women. For some reason, I just can't pick up on subtle social cues. For instance, I was leaving a building a couple of weeks ago to meet dad in a parking lot on campus. He had come to get me since it was suddenly hailing and lightning after a day of having been bright and sunny. I happened to leave the building at the same time as this moderately attractive girl (617 maybe?). As I held the door open for her (as I always do), she commented about the weather. I lingered outside for a bit as she started to put her jacket on and I talked with her about something. I forget what it was exactly, but it was most likely related to a joke about the weather. Then, I noticed dad in the parking lot and without thinking, I went away from her and straight to the car so as not to keep him waiting. I got about halfway there and suddenly came to my senses. As I looked back, the girl was still standing there, kind of with a dumbfounded look on her face. I'm not sure, but I think that leaving was probably the totally wrong choice to make there. Oh well.

In better news, I got accepted to study abroad in Korea!!! Now all that remains is to finalize paperwork and stuff like that. Pending plane tickets and visa approval though, it looks like I will be in Korea come August. Now, that means I'll be missing PAX, so if you're going, don't forget to get tickets. I feel like I should still remind everyone since I always do anyway. Have fun, take lots of pictures for me to look at.

Chris, Steven, and I joined up a DnD group with this girl Chris knows and her boyfriend who DMs. He's a good DM in that he knows the rules well and is helpful and makes well balanced campaigns, but even after one session with him, I think Steven and I have been able to appreciate how awesome Davis' DMing is much more (wow man, two shoutouts! This is what you get for talking to me while I'm writing a post I guess). I'm playing a monk in this campaign. I was going to be a druid, but I found out that they don't have tree form in 3.5, so I was like "screw that" and decided to be a monk since I felt like I never really got to appreciate the class. I must say, it's a pretty awesome one. It also helps that I got Dirk-like stat rolls (17, 16, 16, 12, 12, 11). My favorite moment from the first session was when the four of us were going to use ranged attacks. Steven fired his shortbow and missed. Chris shot his crossbow and did a little damage. The girl fired a spell for a little damage. I picked up a rock off the ground, threw it 50 feet and scored a kill in one hit. In that same battle, my character jumped through fire to punch a hobgoblin (my favorite enemy) in the face before throwing it into said fire. Oh, I also had the time to curb-stomp a werewolf from a tree. That was pretty cool. I think I can get used to this kind of monking.

Ok that's about it. Aside from this stuff, I've been doing videogames as usual and still hanging out on Saturdays which has been fun. This post is definitely long enough though, so I'll let you go. Peace out.