Bracket Busters

Seriously, I’m not dead yet, I promise, it’s just that I haven’t blogged in a week. Hmm, maybe I’d get more comments if I posted more often. Either that, or finally got around to sending out that mass email letting everyone know that my website’s address has changed from seenoevil to www.jared-lee.com.
So what have I been up to in the last week? Well, last Sunday morning I went to church down at First Lutheran here in St Peter with Heidi, to hear Zach and the rest of the orchestra play “Requiem” by Gabriel Faure, which was pretty good. It was a “musical offering,” so it took the place of a sermon/homily. In the afternoon I did some astro hw while watching some basketball and then in the evening it suddenly cleared up, so we actually had to do some observing for astro lab. I hate having to be up on top of Olin when it’s cold and windy. And our four total lab groups kinda devolved into one big group that watched a couple people mount Chuck’s digital camera on the telescope to take a couple pictures of the Moon, hehe. At least astrophysics lab isn’t hard. 🙂
Monday was Pi Day (3-14, March 14th), so in the evening (after another fantastic episode of 24, Jack Bauer rocks!), we all went over to Carl & Seth’s apartment in College View for a Pi Day party. It was pretty cool, around 25 people showed up, and we had a feast of 10 or 11 pies or so, including raspberry, orange meringue, chocolate mousse, and of course pumpkin pie, it was delicious!
Tuesday, what happened Tuesday? Other than Proclaim, I can’t remember, so it must not have been too exciting. Oh yeah, I spent a couple hours filling out both of my brackets for the NCAA tournament. I’m organizing one bracket tournament for SPS, which had no entry fee, with the winners getting a free physics t-shirt or two. And then my friend Brian was organizing another pool for $3, so I made both brackets different enough that even if one of them gets totally busted, I might stand a chance to win in the other one. My Final Four picks in my physics bracket were Illinois, Gonzaga, North Carolina and Oklahoma, with Illinois beating UNC for the title, and the other bracket had Illinois over UNC for the championship again, plus Louisville and Oklahoma joining them in St Louis.
Wednesday after class I went down to Mankato to pick up some stuff, including our TripTik stuff (guidebooks, maps, etc) from AAA that Zach had ordered for our upcoming East Coast road trip. Not too much else went on, other than writing a paper for Senior Sem about why the Islamic Middle East just can’t seem to get along with the (quasi)-Christian West. It was actually an interesting paper to write, and I snagged some passages from the Koran to support my argument. Now it’s just a waiting game to see if Byron & Florence like my paper, or think it’s central argument is too controversial or politically incorrect. 🙂
With Thursday being St Patrick’s Day and all, I kept up my Grandpa Siesennop’s tradition of wearing orange for St Paddy’s Day. Nobody really noticed though, until Senior Sem class when Byron looked at me and said, “That’s not nice,” lol. I was just glad that at least somebody could figure out that there was a specific reason I wore orange on that particular day. 🙂 Thursday evening there was also an SPS meeting, where among other things, we had a final vote on this year’s t-shirt design. The official shirt will be red and have the phrase “If this looks blue you’re going too fast!” on the front, with a speed limit sign on the back with a complicated equation that really equals c, the speed of light, and below the sign it’ll say “relativity enforced.” Pretty clever, actually. 🙂 And then a bunch of us juniors and seniors will also be getting a second shirt that says “Viva la Mechanics” with a picture of Chuck (a la Che Guevara, hehe), and then quite possibly the most complicated and insane mechanics problem I’ve ever seen on the back. Both shirts will be great, I can’t wait till we get them! After the SPS meeting John & I quick wrote up our first astrophysics lab report (lame but easy), and then I went to Prepare, to hear Captive Free lead the worship time and hear Gary Gilbertson speak, it was quite good. And Thursday was also the first day of March Madness, the NCAA tourney. Basketball heaven! It’s too bad that I was only able to catch an extremely limited amount of roundball on Thursday though, due to class and stuff.
Friday was an interesting day. First of all, it had started snowing around midnight, and was snowing like mad all day long. So I had Conditioning at 9, but we had a sub, since the regular instructor couldn’t make it to campus because of the weather. Then while I was at lunch at noon we got word that all classes the rest of the day were cancelled. We were having a snow day! In college! The campus was actually buzzing with excitement, it was pretty cool. It’s too bad that the only class of mine that was affected was my 12:30 Astrophysics class, but something’s better than nothing. But that meant that I was able to get to The Dive to catch the rest of the Minnesota-Iowa State game, and then spend the rest of the afternoon watching even more basketball! I love college basketball, even when the games aren’t quite going my way. After supper I went over to Olin to watch a movie with the SPS and MCS clubs, called “What the Bleep Do We Know?” starring Marlee Matlin. Strangely enough, it’s sort of a comedy about quantum physics and neurology. It had its funny moments, but overall it was just very strange and really not that good. After the movie a bunch of us celebrated our new-found 8-10 inches of snow by going traying over by South Elementary — me, Carl, Seth, Zach, Jolene, Johanna, Ben, Jess, Paul (aka Frodo), & Emma. We had a bunch of caf trays and Dr Nimmo’s ten-person toboggan again, which we managed to fit a full 10 or 11 on, with a bit of double-decking. 😉 We actually figure that for that run we had a full ton on the toboggan! The downside is that for that run I was in front, and my back really felt the full weight when we started going down the steepest portion of the hill. Let’s just say I wasn’t gonna be riding in front again. 🙂 Once we were all cold and tired, we went back to Arbor View to Jolene’s apartment, and played some Cranium.
This morning (Saturday) I had to work at Admissions, though I didn’t have to work very long because it was a rather slow day, with not too many visitors scheduled to begin with, and then a couple of those cancelling due to the weather. The afternoon I basically spent sitting around, doing a couple Astrophysics problems (though incorrectly, as I later found out) while watching more college basketball. I managed to take a break from my hoops addiction tonight for Christian Gaming Night, which was enjoyable.
So as for how the NCAA tourney is turning out so far, I had 15 of Thursday’s 16 games picked right, so I got off to a good start (I only mispicked the Iowa-Cincinnati game). Friday wasn’t so good for me though, as I only got 10 of the 16 other First Round games right, though I did manage to pick the Vermont upset of Syracuse, woot woot! Today wasn’t so good for me either, with half of my Final Four picks dying (Gonzaga & Oklahoma). Curses! My bracket is busted! At least Illinois & North Carolina are still alive, my picks to play for the national title. And because Gonzaga lost, I needed Wake Forest and Duke to both lose as soon as possible, since they were really the only alternatives that most other people had in the Final Four, so my spirits got a lift tonight when the Demon Deacons lost to West Virginia, woohoo! Oh, and yeah, I seriously did pick UW-Milwaukee to make the Sweet 16. 🙂 So while I’m not in great shape, not many other people are doing well either at this point, so my chances are still reasonable to either win some money or get a free t-shirt.
Oh, and if any of you haven’t read it yet, go and check out (or buy) “Men In Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America” by Mark Levin. I read it last weekend on my trip to Colorado, and it’s absolutely fabulous. If you want to learn about history or the Constitution, this book is a must. That’s all for now, time for homework after church in the morning.