Well Worn In

Every Spring brings the Blue and White game, the annual football inter-squad scrimmage.  To many, however, the main attraction is tailgating.

It was Pee-Pee’s 5th Birthday

Yesterday was State Patty’s Day here at Penn State.  State Patty’s day started 4 years ago because St. Patrick’s day fell over spring break, and the students wanted to celebrate together.  And celebrate we have!  Despite all sorts of controversy surrounding this year’s celebration, students dawned their green, and celebrated the only way Penn Staters know how to.

In the days and weeks leading up to this weekend, State College Borough officials, State College Police, University Officials, (and Collegian staff writers) were all decrying the evils of such a holiday.  Students were warned of  “500 undercover police officers,” “Paddy wagons to bring the arrested to arraignment,” as well as other various forebodings.

While a day of drinking just to drink does have its inherent evils, I was upset by the apparent hypocrisy of  the situation.  Consider a home football game.  It’s no secret that many “fans” of my Nittany Lions come to Happy Valley solely to tailgate–and by tailgate I mean drink, and drink a lot.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of underage drinkers at all home football games.  And certainly a higher than average number of arrests, citations, etc.

Now consider State Patty’s day.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of underage drinkers and certainly a higher than average number of arrests, citations, etc.  Sound similar?  The only difference is that there is no football game–as if the football game somehow makes obscenely excessive drinking okay.
Well, no.  It’s not particularly the football game itself that makes all the drinking okay.  It’s all the alumni (thousands) that come back every Saturday–and bring with them their checkbooks…

BUT!  In all, fortunately no one I know of had a run in with the law, and everyone had a great day!

A House? Car? Paying your way through college? An investment, perhaps?

How about pediatric cancer?  This past weekend, Penn State held its annual 46 hour dance marathon, commonly referred to as THON.  The dance marathon is the culmination of a year long fund raising effort by students, with the proceeds going to the Four Diamonds Fund.

The Four Diamonds Fund is an organization that helps families of, and patients of pediatric cancer at the Hershey Medical Center, in central Pennsylvania.  The Fund provides emotional support, as well as substantial financial support covering the bills that insurance won’t.  In effect, the families never see a bill.  How great is that?

The total from this year’s THON season was the largest yet: $7,838,054.36.  Wow.  I have never been prouder to be a Penn Stater.

I was wandering around campus the other day with my camera.  Captured these:

This Semester I:

1. Downloaded an inordinate amount of music
2. Did laundry 4 times
3. Changed my sheets 0 times
4. Visited Wikipedia 1×10^10 times
5. Facebook stalked just about everyone I know
6. Became level 15 in Farmville
7. Listened to every No Agenda podcast
8. Finished out a journal
9. Started a new journal
10. Watched 2 seasons of Entouage and a season of the X-Files
11. Made about 20 iTunes playlists
12. Made a WordPress blog (This one)
13. Oh yea, went to class too

Sucessful Semester, I’d Say.

More stress relief.  This time, however, in the form of a techno rave.  It actually turned out to be pretty wild, with about 600 students attending.  It was cool to see a lot of people getting really into it, not just dancing–I saw a gorilla, greenman, santa clause, 4 ninjas, and Elvis, as well as a handful of other creative (and not so creative) costumes.

It was my first time crowd surfing, or stage diving, and let me tell you–you have to try it. But make sure you have some friends willing to make sure you don’t fall and break a hip (it happened).

What do you get when you combine a few thousand college freshmen stressed out from finals and 3 inches of snow?  An epic snowball fight.