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Published: September 3rd 2007
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Beaver Stadium
Capacity 109,000 Sorry about the delay, I've been busy, you know how it is. I actually wrote a big long post a couple of days ago and managed to accidentally hit the back key and lose it all before I posted it.
I started classes last week. My schedule is pretty bad: I have 8am-4:30pm MWF, Thursday 8am-11am, and Tuesday off. I've been slacking a bit. You know when you have soooo much to do that you decide that ra/ther than making a decision on where to start you just go hang out in the quad with your mates? or go to the pool? Well, that's me. The weather's beautiful here, the humidity has died down a bit and it's still nice and warm.
My classes seem fairly easy at this point. I'm doing: Steel, Soil Mechanics, Materials, Surveying and Basic Research Methods in Psychology. My Steel lecturer didn't know whether they use different design codes in different countries. I let him know that we do. And we don't use 1/18 of an inch as a unit of measurement. We do use metric in some of the classes though which is nice
Books are expensive. Lecturers don't speak proper English (rejuvenisation, exemptation, atomistic) I think they've been taking lessons from their president.
It never ceases to amaze me how much bullshit the Americans will swallow about dropbears, kangaroos, australian desert iguanas (no really). I'm getting a bit sick of it though it's starting to get old.
I went to the freshman pep rally on the Sunday before classes started, where they encouraged everyone to "get rooted in service" by handing out shirts. I cheerfully explained that it means something different in Australia. Subtly though, I think they mean the same thing. After all, that's what college is all about!
The Pep Rally scared me a little bit. You go to a big hall and chant "We Are Penn State" until your brain falls out and you can't remember your own name. They then remind you on the big screen after an inspiring montage that "We Are Penn State... And They're Not". Nationalism anyone?
I bought my beautiful new solid body Taylor Acoustic and have been spending way too much time playing it. I played an open mic night on Wednesday. Turned out most of the performers were"comedians". I put that in quotes because they weren't actually funny. The Americans were laughing but I seriously just don't get it. How is a song about killing kittens or going out with a limbless girl funny? I suppose I just haven't evolved to the level of American wit yet. Here's hoping.
I went to my first football game on Saturday. Penn State beat Florida International 59-0, which in case you don't figure, is a bit of a thrashing. They always start the season against a crap team so they get a morale boost, and the crap team gets heaps of money from their share in gate receipts. The other good news though is that Penn State's arch rival, University of Michigan, lost their opener to the crap team (massive upset). The 107,000 people in the stadium were more excited about Michigan losing than PSU winning I think. The game was good to watch, but it was way too long. It goes for 3 and a half hours, even though the actual play time is only 60 minutes. They break for every commercial and the clock is constantly stopping. I have to admit though, it looks like a lot of fun to play. Basically you just get dressed up in pads and run into each other as hard as you can.
I went to a big frat party last night. We wen with a big group and only some of us got in, which sucks. The only reason we got in is because we were with some ditzy American girls that we met at the bus stop. Even the accents couldn't save some of us! It was pretty crap though. Frat guys are all dickheads. It's a prerequisite to get in, because you have to go through so much shit to get in, before paying to be "cool" and then putting other people through the same shit that you went through. It takes a certain type of person. We got lots of free beer though, which was pretty cool.
Anyway, I'm still having too much fun for my own good. I'm trying to be healthy but it's hard! They try and force you to eat pizza and hamburgers and cakes and biscuits and chips. It's horrible. A group of us went to the Outback Steakhouse Australian themed restaraunt for dinner a couple of nights ago. It pained me to see James Boags, Coopers and Tooheys on the menu and not be able to order it because I'm underage. The food was crap though. The only thing Australian about it was that they wrote "Aussie Chips" instead of french fries on the menu. They were still french fries though. (There was a "Chocolate Thunder from Down Under" on the desert menu, which I though more accurately described the post meal experience...).
Miss you guys!
Renan.
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