anfin’s Blog

If you would like to see what some of the plant life of Hawaii looks like through the lens of my brand new camera, you should go here.

What a good idea somebody had.

• Coffee ice-cream is delicious. Nothing should be this delicious.
• The cinnamon muffins they’ve just started having at Newspring are delicious.
• The apple cider pie at Coffee Underground is not delicious even though it looks and smells amazing. I am reminded of why I thought I didn’t like apple pie.

Well we had the 50-meter swim for the Iron Man Competition yesterday. I came in dead last for the girls, but I still got points being that there were only five participating. Yay Participation Points! More importantly, I still made my goal (which clearly had nothing to do with how well I did against the other swimmers): I swam in the (mostly) correct fashion the whole way. The “mostly” refers to the fact that I didn’t do one of the fancy turns where you gracefully flip over at the end of the pool and push off. That will never happen. So where is the accomplishment you ask? One word: Improvement. Last year I went a grand total of about 10 feet before I got water up my nose trying to turn my head to breath. I had to turn over on my back to swim the rest of the way. In comparison, this year I practically crossed the English Channel.

Anyway, after the swim, my lab team (WaKM) had a volleyball game. For those of you who don’t know, the name WaKM (pronouced Whack ‘em) is a combination of our two lab group Wagenknecht and KM. Anyway, during the game, a bird later identified as a wild cockatoo flew into our midst. This was weird enough to grant a blog mention, but then he proceeded to land daintily on the arm of biggest guy on our team. He didn’t seem to want to get off of his new friend’s arm, which would probably not be too helpful in our team’s quest for victory, but after some work we were able to perch him upon the bike rack. As evidenced by his fondness of people, the thing was obviously a pet, so we were all worried about its survival. We planned to take it to the biology department as soon as we finished our game, but it flew to another guy on our team. He decided to leave the game at that point and hopefully carry the bird to the safety of the biology department. Unfortunately, no one was there at that point so he ended up taking it to PetCo. While all that was happening, we proceeded to win our match. The End.

So we had the one-mile run yesterday for the Iron Man Competition, and I came in dead last. This was not much of a surprise though (Crazy people who run 5-something-minute miles), and even if I didn’t get any points, at least I can say that I tried. Anyway, at some point late in the day yesterday KM mentioned that I’d probably be sore today. I said probably not since it was only a mile and all, but in fact I am fairly sore today. However, I do not believe that it’s from the running. Yesterday evening I rode my bike and all its squeeky goodness for a little over an hour around the mall at Furman. I had also done the same the night before only not for as lengthy a time. Anyway, doing so brings me back to my old favorite pasttime–when I would ride for hours around and around our house and just think about whatever. I certainly don’t have to waste anytime thinking about my route when I’m going in a circle, and it’s not overly strenuous if I don’t particularly want it to be. What I’m basically doing is being lazy while still getting some exercise into my routine. Hey, it’s better than watching TV.

In a related note, a FUPO car almost ran over me two nights ago. Seriously, if I had not slammed on my one working break (Consequently, with all the pressure on it alone, it’s not working as well as it used to), then I would have been knocked to the pavement. What happened was I was just minding my own business riding around the circle up next to the PAC, and just as I was passing in front of the turnoff that leads to Timmons, the FUPO car came up from behind me and turned off directly in front of me. Seriously, he was less than a foot away. Now, I was clearly in the bike lane, and normally I would think that I had the right of way since I was going straight and he was turning. Of course, now I’m not so sure particularly since it was a FUPO car. So you tell me. Did I have the right of way or would Mr. FUPO Officer have gotten away with smacking me into the pavement? Regardless, I will be looking over my shoulder from now on.

Today has been an unusually eventful day, and in fact the same can be said for this entire week. For one, I’ve synthesized at least three different products in high yields and am working on a couple more. Sad thing is (or is it?), one of the best of the products was not even one I was trying to make. I accidentally used the wrong reagent for a prep and ended up with a fantastic yield of ridiculously pure product. It’s not what I was going for, but it’s still a useful compound for our lab to have so I’m not feeling too bad about it. What I am feeling bad about is the fact that my computer has decided to go on strike until I finally yield to the demands it has been making since last winter term concerning replacing its faulty fan. This makes for a sad lack of internet unless I trudge to the library or rely upon the kindness of roommates. Sad day… In happier news, we had the 100 meter run for the Iron Man Competition this morning, and I came in fourth for the girls. This is a joyous thing, but it is now time to give you fine folks some explanation of the title of this entry. Imagine to yourselves that you are in downtown Greenville and see a mass of people all walking down the sidewalk and that each person in this multitude is carrying a loaf of Sara Lee Soft and Smooth Whole Grain White Bread. I personally would find myself rather confused. At any rate, this unusual phenomenon did in fact occur today after the Greenville Drive game attended by the Chemistry Department. It seems that the generous people at Sara Lee decided to give one such loaf to everyone at the game. Maybe it doesn’t sound so impressive to you, but all of us college students were pretty excited. I mean, it’s free bread! We’re not going to complain.

You may ask, “What is this cryptic message that you have given us in the title of your blog post? Is it some sort of secret code to solving some complex riddle?” Well, the answer is that, no, it is not. These numbers are in fact my bowling scores in the order I bowled them tonight at the first official Iron Man event of the summer: ten-pin bowling. Clearly, I did not start out strong, and I certainly didn’t hold any hope for scoring points for this event, but at least at the time I had to leave, I was in a strong third place. Expect further Iron Man updates in the future, and for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, check here. I would be more detailed right now but my space key isn’t working properly (as a side note, if anyone has a spare keyboard that they would like to graciously donate, I would be very appreciative). The End.

I slightly resent recent insinuations that I should be doing better at blogging than I have been. For one thing, I have never claimed to be the cool computer savvy cool person that Jonathan is. For another thing, my writing is not as terribly fun to read as my cool computer savvy cool brother Jonathan (or for that matter my cool somewhat-computer-savvy cool friend Lauren. . . though I’d say that my posts are almost up to par with my cool definitely-not-at-all-computer-savvy cool friend Tori’s). My final justification for my infrequent blogging is the fact that my life is not particularly interesting. After all, if one is not a prolific writer and in addition has nothing of interest to write about, how can their blog posts be anything but incredibly boring reads? When in fact something interesting does happen to me, I generally immediately relate it to the people who care by phone or in person. Thus, it seems silly to inform them again through a blog post. However, if you would like for me to perform this useless practice, I will aim to please. You should expect mundane and redundant information in the future, and don’t complain…you asked for it.

According to Tori, I should provide an roommate situation update, so here it is: Girl C got offered an RA job complete with a pre-assigned room. She asked me to live with her, and we also found another nice roommate. However, since it’s preassigned we don’t have to go through the lottery at all. Hooray! The apartment is slightly far away from campus (For the benefit of Furmanites who know things about NV, I’ll be in NV D) but at least it has singles, and that’s the most important thing to me. At least I won’t become a complete hermit separated from all the world of upperclassmen by living in the dorms next year. Hooray again!

P.S. Girl B also found 3 roommates so all is well with her too.

So for those of you who don’t know, Horton the Elephant of Dr. Seuss fame is known for saying, “I meant what I said and I said what I meant; an elephant’s faithful one-hundred percent.” In fact, if you know the story, you’ll realize that he didn’t just say it, he followed through with it. It would be a very sad, meaningless quote if he hadn’t done so. Anyway, it has become apparent to me over the years that no one follows these Hortonian ideals. I can immediately recall several occasions during my college years during which a friend (?) said that they would do something, no maybe’s or probably’s attached, and then later backed out because it was not convenient. In each case, I wouldn’t have cared about them not doing whatever it was except that they had previously said they would.

For instance, I thought until an hour ago that I finally found roommates for North Village next year. We had a meeting early last week where Girl A (the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent) said, “So we are definitely all rooming next year right?” We all responded positively. Girl A sent an email to me an hour ago saying, “I am so terribly sorry to have to do this, but I have been selected from the waiting list to live off campus for next year. I really have to take the chance for financial reasons in my family. I feel so horrible leaving you girls out, but I hope that I have left enough time for ya’ll to figure out another plan. I have talked to Girl B and will be sending a message to Girl C as well. Again, I am so super sorry to leave you girls.”

And thus it is that I yet again am lacking in four roommates. I’m not really understanding the “take the chance” part. She didn’t take any chances. She used us as a backup plan without telling us that she had really signed up for the off-campus lottery. Anyway, had Girl A been honest with us up front, I would not be practically boiling with anger towards her right now.

Basically, it would be really nice if people would let their yes be yes and their no be no. Don’t say you’ll do something if you can’t make a real commitment. A commitment isn’t a commitment unless you are going to do everything in your power to follow through.