An Update!

Hey all, sorry I've been so lazy about updating. I've been more than a little busy lately (this isn't any old lazy day in Korea, where I had no homework and a lot of free time). One night I had an energy drink to keep awake to do homework.

Penn has been real fun so far. Making friends is the shizzle, especially when they are from so many different places. On Saturdays a few of us gather to watch college football; one of my roommates is a USC fan, one of my other friends is a Rutgers fan, another is a Michigan fan, and so forth. A much better way to spend Saturdays than watching Penn football. (Penn just lost their first game at home to Lafayette 8-7. They were up 7-3, then purposely gave up a safety late in the game, only to have Lafayette score a game-winning field goal. Pathetic.) And one of my roommates spends half his life playing Zelda on N64. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Ultimate has been kind of a challenge so far. Practices haven't been too great, simply because 1) it's really hot, 2) the fields are crappy, 3) I'm out of shape, and 4) the team is not solid on fundamentals, so scrimmages are messy. This past weekend we played at Club Sectionals in New Jersey, and split into Penn White (my team) and Penn Purple (these are our team colors... rather South-Eugene-esque if you ask me. But the school's actual colors are red, white, and blue. Weird, huh?). We lost our first three games by a combined score of 39-4. It was some of the most frustrating Ultimate I have ever played... We won our next game, but proceeded to lose both our games on Sunday.

But not all hope is lost! One of our team captains plays for Pike, a local club team (and a pretty decent one at that). And there's another freshman on the team who played for (and co-coached) the University School of Nashville, which is a pretty good team in the East. He's definitely a better player than me, so there's a foundation here. The best case scenario is that he and I are captains for senior year (and we win Nationals).

Playing in the tournament, however, really screwed up my homework situation... I have a lot of homework, including a four-page research project proposal by Wednesday. I have to research a dilemma in international development, and I have decided to pick the problem of water pollution in Korea, China, and Thailand. (In case you've noticed, I'm really into that environment stuff...) I have to turn in a combined 24 pages of writing by the end of the semester. Oddly enough, I'm really looking forward to it.

Otherwise, math is seriously kicking my ass, almost to the point that I want to stop taking it after this semester and consider a different major (perhaps a different career!). But biology is pretty swell so far, and I'm really looking forward to taking chemistry next year. So we'll see.

Oh yeah, good luck to everyone going to OSU!