Oh Hey There

Oh Hey Blog,
I’ve personally neglected you this past month. The only thing I’ve contributed to you besides comments on other people’s well-written posts was my drunken blog post on the evening when the men’s team tasted the rainbow during first weekend. Next to Elliot’s post, it almost felt shameful.

But now I’m back and ready to blog more often. Besides life updates, I have a few topics I’d like to cover. [Also, I’m looking forward to whoever writes the social networking posts.] But for now, a life update, just to catch everyone up and because it’s an easier post to write on a Sunday morning.

One Day in the Life of Brian Richardovich

I'm very glad to see this revival - Elliot, your last two posts in particular have been great to read, I really miss having daily conversations with you and reading about your fish and research brought me back to good ol' Stadium days. I get told that I reminisce about Stadium too much, and I probably do, but I also reminisce about Hill House and other things, so I don't think it's unhealthy. I also just really miss the element that you boys brought to the swim team that has been blatantly missing for the last year. Ted, your sampling site find is excellent, I've already used it a lot to find samples in songs that I love and will definitely continue using it. A quick deviation into the sampling vein: for you Girl Talk fans (practically all of Stadium), you need to get the new album if you don't have it and if you do, check out this website. It has the entire new album on it and shows which songs are being sampled together, which is very helpful for getting into a GT album.

Señor Year

I haven't really checked in this year. And a lot has been going on in my life. So here we go:

Lets start with what's first: Location, Location, Location.
I've been settled in at 519 College for a little more than 2 months now. And its been pretty good. Some of you have been able to see and stay here, and saw that Pete's mom really did-up the place. We actually have been pretty good at keeping it clean too. Pete is a clean freak and Eric is just tidy. Dinger probably is the messiest, with me close behind. But I keep the messy to my room, not public spaces. There haven't been any conflicts yet, except Pete and Erin arguing over whether Frisbee is a sport (REALLY fun to watch - Pete doesn't consider diving or swimming a sport, btw). We've had some fun pre-gaming here, and the Alumni Party has been the only big rager. That's mostly because there's been big stuff goin on every Saturday night.
Other notables:
-We all, cept Pete, wanna bring Louise's dog down for a few weeks
-Pete never walks or bikes into campus - he drives.
-We call it our "Fake Nice House" because every once and a while something goes wrong or breaks or leaks (our front door literally fell off with the wind storm last week), but our landlord is a jolly guy who comes down the next day

Skool
I'm taking 3 of 12 credits of comps. Those three credits were gained when my comps proposal was accepted last week. Writing the proposal was difficult because it involved doing a lot a secondary research and finding a set of primary sources I was going to use. Something I should have done more in the summer, but did none of. So now I have 10 pages of my comps due the first day of Winter Term. We'll see how that pans out because currently I have not touched my comps binder since I turned in my proposal 3 weeks ago...

Next term is nice. One class (a 100 level African History Course) and 9 credits of comps. Holla.

I also decided that I am going to graduate early. Finances have a big role to play in the decision, but I also think that it will provide me with a lot of really cool options and opportunities with how to spend my time. I may audit a class, play around in Boliou (especially in the wheel-throwing studio - I miss it!), volunteer a lot more, study for and take the GRE, find a job, attend lectures and presentations, walk dogs, etc. I went in to talk to Hudlin Wagner and she said, "I think you should do it. It would give you an almost spiritual experience during your last few months here than many students don't get the time to have." Hm.. Dunno about the spiritual part, but it would give an experience that most people don't have while at Carleton (and during great weather). There is the other side of it too. For example, Hannah N. said, "Well that means, whenever I or anyone wants to drink, no matter what or when, you're gonna have no excuse not to." My pocketbook and my liver are cautiously excited.

Other Shtuff
A lot of personal shit has been going on too in my life. My dad is getting married this month. When did he decide to schedule the wedding for? Oh, just during Finals. Thanks dad. It is no doubt going to be a show. He also is moving from OP to Chicago - somewhere on the redline. The condo he just moved into a few years ago isn't big enough for him and his new wife (That sounds like a fat joke, but its not). I don't know the fiance very well, but she is a VERY good polish cook. And then my grandma died too? Did I mention I have pneumonia? That prevents me from being in the pool for at least 10 days. VERY frustrating. What an eventful month already!

But it's been a fun term though so far. Some of us tubed down the cannon the day before classes. Stevie P threw a hell of a inauguration ball, fireworks and all. Swimming was going great before I got sick. The freshman are a fun bunch. We had one of the better cocktail parties I've been to. And I attended the best Sayles dance ever (and I normally hate sayles dances) - lemme just say it was a big swimmer contingent in the core of the dance, we a had a fancy bottle of some pink drank, and the next day everyone called it "Sweatfest 2010" and was very sore.

Aight. That's all for now. I'll leave you with this:








Also, Elliot have fun in da OP!

Senior Year WTF?

This is senior year? Really? I've actually been here for 3 years? This is what goes through my mind every morning. Then, I think: "What do I have to do today? Hmmm I have work, then one class, and then like 5 meetings. Oh, and I should work on one of my compses, maybe. Or drink. Hmmmmm."

So, what's new about this year? First, I'm living in basement Memorial, otherwise known as The Pit, and it's amazing. Our common room isn't quite as large as the Stadium common room (it's hard to tell), we only have a half kitchen, but my room is gargantuan, nearly as large as the triple I lived in last year. We threw our first party last night, a triple-kegger (yes that's right) and it was a major success. I did realize that the Stadium carpeting made throwing parties sooo much easier, but we had a mopping party today and our room is as clean as ever. We also live down the hall from a pool table and a foosball table.

Secondly, comps. So I'm double compsing this term and next term, meaning that I only have 2 classes and subsequently, no class on Friday. This is awesome in terms of scheduling, but I have not been doing enough to prep for my Russian test in 3 weeks (case in point: this post).

Third: I've joined the equestrian team! Which means that I have an hour-long horseback riding lesson every week and I'll probably do a show sometime. I am very likely the only male on the team, but there might be another one. I decided to join the equestrian team because I felt like a bad Kansan because I'm not very experienced with horses and because I would like to live in southern Siberia next year, where horseback riding is a very useful skill. Maybe not so much jumping, but still.

Fourth, the FLOOD! So it started raining sometime Tuesday night and continued raining moderately hard until Thursday night. On Thursday, the fields surrounding West had already flooded and the Lakes had risen substantially. By Friday, the river had grown beyond its banks and inundated the entire town. Stadium and West were islands in a very large lake. The football field/track are destroyed. Allen house (and those other ones next to it) had to be evacuated. Froggy's was damaged heavily and the fire department was flooded. This is the worst non-tornado natural disaster I've ever been in.

So yeah, that's a glimpse of what I've been up to. Life is busy, but I've done that intentionally because I want to get everything out of this year that I can.