Even though I got a lot accomplished over Thanksgiving Break, I still have a lot of work to do for class this week. I have a paper due on Tuesday, two papers due on Wednesday, and a major final research assignment due on Thursday. Let's just say I am going to have to put my work on overdrive. The good news is that I finished the first three today. I just have to complete the research assignment and finish some reading assignments. I already have four pages done, so I should wrap it up soon.

This weekend, Laura, Jenna, Justin, and I are heading to Hershey, PA. We are going to attend a conference on the Relay For Life. It should give us some tips on how to run the Relay this coming April. We don't have a lot of information except that it starts on Saturday at 11 a.m. and ends at 2 p.m. on Sunday. We are going to spend the night at the Hershey Lodge down the road. On Friday night, we are going to head to Jenna's house in Schellsburg, so we can sleep in an extra hour on Saturday. I hope that we have a great time. This weekend is also Community Spirit Day, which we will not be able to attend. I am going to miss a fun event.

If anyone is interested in attending...
Admission is free and there will be free t-shirts to the 1st 500 guests. The girl's game starts at 1 p.m. and the guys play at 3 p.m. Come out and support our Mounties! It should be a great event.

Well, I am going to work on some more homework...

John

Posted by John Porter at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy Turkey Day!

I am having a great time at home over my Thanksgiving break. I missed all of my family members. After several hugs and greetings on Wednesday, I settled down to start some of my homework. I know! Homework over a break? I have a lot to do, but nothing that I can't handle. I got a lot of my reading done for the following week. Now I have to start some of my papers for a couple of my classes.

Thanksgiving Day was a nice break from the homework. I think I may have gained a pound or two from eating all of the delicious food. I really love Pumpkin Pie, and this is one of the only times of year that I get to enjoy it. The turkey was really delicious also. I am going to have fun eating all of the leftovers in the next few days. We watched a couple of the football games that were on TV, too. The Steelers play on Sunday against a tough team, the Baltimore Ravens. My brother and I played some XBox games before I headed to bed. The tryptophan in the turkey affects me greatly during the holidays.

Today I am going to focus on some of my homework. Later we might go shopping. Since it is Black Friday, it should be very hectic outside. Let the fun begin!

John

Posted by John Porter at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you can see from my title, I am still on an "old school" fixation. This is going to be a short week. Classes end on Tuesday, and then I get to go home to be with my family for Thanksgiving. I am so excited. It's been a while since I have seen them last.

Sunday was relatively uneventful. I wasn't in a big football mood, so I watched a few minutes of the Steelers-Browns game. We won, but barely. Instead of watching the game, I focused more on my homework. Owen, Justin, and I played some Super Smash Brothers Melee on my GameCube. It was tons of fun, and Owen is starting to become a true player. I think we may have gotten him addicted to the game. We also played some Goldeneye for a while.

We had a residence hall floor meeting last night as well. A couple of us are going to participate in a Secret Santa gift exchange. I am looking forward to giving my "secret person" a gift. That reminds me that I need to start looking for Christmas presents for my family! Just in case Santa might be reading this...I would like:

A new car
A Nintendo Wii
Some more clothes
Some warm Arkansan weather!

Thanks Santa!

Today, I am going to eat in the snack bar with some friends. I am also scheduled to give a tour today at 3. After that, I am finished for the day, but I do work tonight at 9. Well, I am going to go get ready for lunch...

John

Posted by John Porter at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today has been a slow day, a vast contrast from Friday and Saturday.

The play, Nevermore, brought in large crowds on Wednesday and Thursday evening. The play was interesting, and there were some "spooky" parts, especially during the Masque of the Red Death reading. On Thursday, we had some torrential downpours, so it was a soggy day for Cresson. I had a test in one class and a quiz in another. The basement of Alumni, the storage facility for the play, flooded. Justin and I had a busy night cleaning up all of the excess water, but we eventually got everything cleaned up. We are now finished with our play production hours. I am glad that it is over, but I will miss the fun times that we all shared.

On Friday, we held the Coaches Versus Cancer Basketball Tournament. It was an exciting night. The first game was at 6 and pitted Waynesburg against Salisbury. The second game, at 8, was between Galludet and the Mounties. Salisbury won the first game. We won the second game. It was an exciting, but close game. The amazing fact is that Galludet is a college for the deaf. I was amazed at how well the players communicated between each other, and how well they played as a team. On Saturday, Waynesburg beat Galludet in overtime. We lost to Salisbury in the second game, but got second place in the tournament. I ran the concession stand both nights. We made hot chocolate, coffee, popcorn, hot dogs, and sloppy joes. We also sold candy, chips, peanuts, pizza, and cookies. Overall, I worked about 11 hours during the two games.

Laura, Justin, Owen, Petey, Ashley, and I watched a couple of movies over the weekend as well. We watched the first X-Men movie on Friday. On Saturday, we watched Runaway Jury. They were both great movies. Since I had a busy weekend, I had little time for homework; therefore, I am going to start some of my assignments for this upcoming week. I can't wait til Thanksgiving!

Let's Go Steelers!

John

Posted by John Porter at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a crazy weekend, I feel that I am ready for another week of school. Yesterday, I helped to put the finishing touches on the set for the next play. The actors are reading some stories and poems by Edgar Allen Poe. Vox Nova, the Mount Aloysius College choir, will perform some musical pieces for the audience to enjoy. It should be an interesting performance. The showtimes are for this Wednesday and Thursday at 6pm. Everyone should come out and enjoy a night of Poe!

Tonight was Mountie Madness! It was an exciting night, which kicked off the basketball season. The basketball teams played a few scrimmages. There were also three-point contests and a slam-dunk competition. Some of the plays were amazing. I really liked it when Edgar Sampson leaped over four students to make a dunk. There were also prizes, and chances to win t-shirts, a trip for two to Atlantic City, and a chance to win $10,000. I helped the concession stand sell some of their amazing food. Since our popcorn machine was broken, we found another source of food for the crowd to enjoy, kettle corn.

I am currently into an old-school mood, so I have been listening to 80s music all day, while playing some Legend of Zelda. Well, I am going to go "Walk Like an Egyptian," so I will blog some more later...

John

Posted by John Porter at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This has been an exhausting week. I am glad that it is finally over. I am hoping this week goes by without any unexpected surprises.

On Thursday, I had to turn in the start of my final paper. I believe that I did well on it. The great thing about turning a portion of it in early is that we will know if we are writing the paper incorrectly. After class, I had a CAA meeting. We have decided to sell candles for another fundraiser. I hope we can make some extra money before Christmas at Mount Aloysius College. That night was the first Powder Puff Turkey Bowl. It was a great game, and a couple of us guys were the cheerleaders. We even attempted a few basket tosses. For our first time attempting them, I feel we did a good job. The upperclassmen beat the underclassmen. I am hoping that they have another game in the spring.

Friday was also a busy day. The Veterans Day open house was held and it went very smoothly. Afterwards, I went to my on-campus job for a couple of hours. After work, Laura and I headed to Johnstown to go to the mall and to eat at BigDogz. On the way to the mall, my car decided to quit working right on the exit "curve" ramp to get onto 219. There was a problem with my AAA card, but thankfully, they accepted Laura's. Since my dad and I share the same name, I think they got confused with our names. It took over an hour to finally sort out all the details, but eventually it was towed to a repair shop. I should get the verdict on the car tomorrow. I hope that it won't cost a fortune to get it fixed. We didn't get to go to the mall, but we still got to eat at BigDogz, so the entire night wasn't ruined.

Anyways, I have to get some of my homework done...

It was great to see so many of you at the Veterans Day Open House!!!

John

Posted by John Porter at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This has been my busiest week of school, ever!!! On Monday night, there was a game show called ThinkFast in Cosgrave. It was a high tech game complete with remote controls for sixty people. A lot of people showed up, so there was a lot of competition and excitement. The show consisted of many different rounds. There were two rounds of twenty questions with five possible answers. The points start out at 1,000 and decrease with time. After a couple of seconds, clues come up to point you in the right direction. I was in first place for the entire game, except for one time, but I made it back to the top after one question. The questions consisted of pop culture, general knowledge, four music videos with questions, and a 5,000 point question. The final question of the round made you wager a percentage of your points. I was risky and bet the max, 95 percent, each time. After the round is over the four highest players go up for a special round. They then have to gain 500 points by answering questions, some with sound bytes, which were worth 100 points. I made it up there two times. I lost the first time, but won the second one. The winners of those rounds compete in a final round with two wild card players. The first player with 1000 points wins $200. The competition was fierce, but in the end, I won the event and the money. It was a lot of fun, but very nerve racking at the same time.

On Tuesday, Justin and I worked on the play for a couple of hours, and then headed straight to our 6 o'clock classes. After that class, I rushed to the residence hall to finish my paper for my Asian class, my paper for Dorothy Day, and my presentation of The Aeneid for my Honors class.

Today consisted of work... Justin and I headed to Alumni Hall to work on the play for 3 hours, and then I headed to my classes from 1-7. My presentation of the Aeneid went well, but I am glad to finally get it over. After classes, I headed down to work until 11. While I was there, I finished some of my reading for tomorrow.

Well, I have to get some more work done, and then get some sleep before I pass out...I am ready for this weekend so that I can finally relax. The good news is that next week will not be so stressful, so maybe I can relax then too.

Hope to see ya'll on campus soon!

TTYL-

John

Posted by John Porter at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yay! It's finally November. This weekend was really busy for me, and I am proud with the amount of work that I finished. On Thursday, I had two meetings. One was to discuss our fundraisers and our next service project for Children's Advocacy. We are planning our fourth service project for the year. We are going to bring crafts and other projects for the children who attend Mount Aloysius College's annual Christmas celebration. Last year's festivities were very successful, and I am looking forward to this upcoming one. My other meeting was for SGA. We discussed the upcoming WestPacs Job Fair and the time capsule for the graduating seniors.

Jenna and I recently took a class field trip that was also open to the entire Mount Aloysius community. A few people who are not in our class came along with us. We listened to Jim Reagen, a Catholic Worker, talk about women in the church. It was a very nice discussion. After the "talk," we were invited for soup and desserts. The soup was delicious. I am going to have to ask for the recipe.

On Saturday, I spent three hours in the library looking through books for my fifteen-page paper. I found more than a dozen books, and I checked them all out. I am going to have a busy week starting my paper. I also worked in the Student Union for a couple of hours. I started some of my research while I was down there.

I watched the Steelers lose another game tonight, so I am going to go sulk and finish some of my homework...

Hope to see you at the Mount Aloysius College Open House on November 10!
John
a.k.a. -- The Arkansan

Posted by John Porter at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)