Busy, Busy, Busy

First of all I’d like to thank all of you out there who wished me a happy birthday back on Tuesday. It really did make my day a bit better, particularly since I didn’t get a chance to do anything fun that day, apart from a little flag football practice. Yup, the meteo grad students have formed an IM flag football team, and we managed to fit in a couple practices this week in preparation for our first game this Monday evening. Apparently I’m the 1st string cornerback and one of the 2nd string receivers. We’ll see how that goes, especially since these practices were the first real forms of physical activity that I’ve had since arriving in State College.
I’m really feeling the heat right about now, with how much I have to do. I have assignments for Rad Tran (almost all done, though it took forever and frustrated us all) and 501 (very tedious) due Monday, plus grading for Rad Tran (yeah, Dr Clothiaux has us take turns grading our classmates’ homework, instead of him grading it … we’ll see how this works), plus grading the 55 labs for the two Meteo 3 labs I teach. I’ll eventually get it all done. I just won’t watch any football tomorrow. Seriously, I’m even foregoing the chance to see the Vikings on TV out here in the Keystone State so that I can have a prayer of getting some of this crap done. I’d say that these few days have me busier than I ever have been, even during fall of junior year, when I had both Mechanics and Advanced Modern Physics Lab. Now that’s busy!
Despite having a lot to do, I basically took today off (hey, everyone needs a few hours as a break every week, these were mine), going to the Penn State-Minnesota football game. Both teams were undefeated coming into the game, and the Gophers were sporting a #18 national ranking coming into their visit to Happy Valley, so there was a bit of buzz in the air before the game started. It was a totally different atmosphere from the first three non-conference games this season, with this being a Big Ten opponent, and a real team. The Nittany Lions totally and completely dominated the game, blowing out Minnesota 44-14. Many people have asked, and yes I was going for Penn State this game, almost losing my voice in the first half from cheering so loud, but I wouldn’t have been sad had the Gophers pulled it off. That said, with PSU being 5-0 now, the showdown with #8 Ohio State next Saturday night is gonna be HUGE, especially with the game being nationally televised on ESPN, and ESPN College Gameday being here all day long. I’m gonna have to make sure to get as much work as possible done before next weekend!
After reading about this guy, I’m thinking that maybe I should think twice before shocking someone with a touch of static electricity!