(no subject)
Sitting in the Van Hise InfoLab, doing my absolute best to avoid doing any work.
I have an o-chem exam on Friday, which I should be studying for, if nothing else. I was planning to use this one to get back some points, as there isn't that much material on this exam compared to the others. Or, I could be writing up my last o-chem lab, which was actually pretty interesting. We made soap and biodiesel. There's some interesting calculations involving the energy expenditures for green fuels. But no.
Instead I started google searching people I knew. Found Rush's old blog, Pumpkin's name everywhere. Searched for myself, knowing what would come up. There's a famous cross-country runner named Anne Riddle Lundblad, so bunches of articles about her. Scrolled through them looking for myself, not really expecting to find anything. Did see a bunch of our old IC e-mails, then, out of nowhere, an old County Extension newsletter from, not Brown, but Calumet County. Clicked on it, wondering why my name was there, then realized the reason as I started reading.
It was their old horticulture/botany newsletter from 2004. Ron Richter wrote most of the articles, which was cool to see. Haven't heard from Ron in a really long time. And at the bottom was the results of that year's NJHA national conference and competition. What a flood of memories that brought back.
It was 2004, the year we went to North Carolina, my last year. Eric, Dustin, and I were the 3rd place team nationally. We went to the world's largest farmer's market, an experimental botanical garden...we were YC's, gofers for the officers. We'd stay up until 6 am. every morning playing Diplomacy or History of the World, go to bed for an hour, get up and go to contests, tours, everything at breakneck pace. Slept on the bus to and from everywhere. I discovered how Eric gives me airsickness. How many people fit in a hotel bed. Laughed hysterically as my mom helped us devise ways to steal plants through airport security and got everybody's bursting luggage closed. (I smuggled home an iris in an empty Pringles can). Every Wisconsinite on the trip, all 16 of us, doing "Piano Man" karaoke together. Irene was still an officer. Heck, I still kept up with Irene. Wish I still did. She's mostly responsible for me not being painfully shy anymore.
You know, my freshman year of college was so much like that. The insane breakneck speed, the rush. New things everywhere. I wish I could still get that excited about something. One of the things I hoped never to be was jaded, or bored. I never want to feel like I've done or experienced everything.
Wish I could get that sense of wonder back. Wish someone would play Diplomacy with me.
I have an o-chem exam on Friday, which I should be studying for, if nothing else. I was planning to use this one to get back some points, as there isn't that much material on this exam compared to the others. Or, I could be writing up my last o-chem lab, which was actually pretty interesting. We made soap and biodiesel. There's some interesting calculations involving the energy expenditures for green fuels. But no.
Instead I started google searching people I knew. Found Rush's old blog, Pumpkin's name everywhere. Searched for myself, knowing what would come up. There's a famous cross-country runner named Anne Riddle Lundblad, so bunches of articles about her. Scrolled through them looking for myself, not really expecting to find anything. Did see a bunch of our old IC e-mails, then, out of nowhere, an old County Extension newsletter from, not Brown, but Calumet County. Clicked on it, wondering why my name was there, then realized the reason as I started reading.
It was their old horticulture/botany newsletter from 2004. Ron Richter wrote most of the articles, which was cool to see. Haven't heard from Ron in a really long time. And at the bottom was the results of that year's NJHA national conference and competition. What a flood of memories that brought back.
It was 2004, the year we went to North Carolina, my last year. Eric, Dustin, and I were the 3rd place team nationally. We went to the world's largest farmer's market, an experimental botanical garden...we were YC's, gofers for the officers. We'd stay up until 6 am. every morning playing Diplomacy or History of the World, go to bed for an hour, get up and go to contests, tours, everything at breakneck pace. Slept on the bus to and from everywhere. I discovered how Eric gives me airsickness. How many people fit in a hotel bed. Laughed hysterically as my mom helped us devise ways to steal plants through airport security and got everybody's bursting luggage closed. (I smuggled home an iris in an empty Pringles can). Every Wisconsinite on the trip, all 16 of us, doing "Piano Man" karaoke together. Irene was still an officer. Heck, I still kept up with Irene. Wish I still did. She's mostly responsible for me not being painfully shy anymore.
You know, my freshman year of college was so much like that. The insane breakneck speed, the rush. New things everywhere. I wish I could still get that excited about something. One of the things I hoped never to be was jaded, or bored. I never want to feel like I've done or experienced everything.
Wish I could get that sense of wonder back. Wish someone would play Diplomacy with me.