Back Under The Dome

Sorry for the delay in posting, but there’s been little time with the unpacking, the wandering around campus and the catching up.

(I’m sure you know that last statement was a lie. I’ve actually played about five games of NCAA Football 2006 since I’ve been back, including The Greatest Game I’ve Ever Played, coming back from being down 35-0 against #1 USC in LA, and coming back to win 42-35, including a game-tying touchdown return by Tommy Z. Chad saw it. Ask him.)

Regardless, it’s fantastic to be back. My parents dropped me off and stayed for about fifteen minutes before heading back to service The Queen, so it was a slightly shorter process then last year’s Frosh-O weekend of hell. But how are things? Let’s review quickly.

The New Room: Our new room is pretty sweet, I’ll have to say. If Tim (more on Tim later) brings his TV, we’ll have four televisions, three fridges, two DirecTV receivers (hopefully being installed today – one with Tivo), an X-Box, a PS2, a Super Nintendo and a GameCube. We also have a pretty sweet collection of posters, The Couch from last year and Sean’s stupid, oversized recliner.

The New Roommate: Since Pete abandoned us for sunshine and Song Girls, they threw junior Tim Rippinger in with us. We were a little worried, obviously, just because you never know the level of tool-age you might get in a guy at ND, but as it turns out, Tim is the man. He’s a lot cooler than the rest of us, had an excellent poster collection and fits in just fine.

How well does he fit in? When trying to decide to use deskspace for his computer and subwoofer or to have room to do work, he quickly went for the speaker system. I love the guy.

The New Spacing: Easily the worst part of this year, not having the entire section together. The farthest walk is one hundred seconds from our room to 110+Tommy (I need to come up with better names – We’re thinking “Scary Cave System” for their quad), and it’s decently quick to walk up to Danny, Tyler and Brendan’s room directly above us, and Jake, Rob and Dan’s right down the hall from there. Barcus is up in Siberia, but I’ll be checking that out once he gets the common room finished/all channels of DirecTV installed.

The New Classes: I have no idea, and don’t really care. Being here for a few days with no classes has made me realize I really like lounging. A lot. Now granted, once things get started and I can convince myself that this is a challenge and I should really want to beat the professor, I’ll be fine, but this first couple weeks is going to be like Senior-it is mixed with vodka and sunshine. Not good times.

Seeing Everybody: Despite the fact it seems like we didn’t leave – and I’m serious, it seems like we didn’t leave at all, it’s so eerie – it was still great to see everybody for the first time. Flanny’s back for a week before he starts The Real World (not the show, the actual real world, which must suck immensely), so it’s great to see him, and I’ve ran into about everybody in the dorm/at various parties. Brendan and I still haven’t broken into Susan and Renee’s quad and finished them off in our Euchre series (it’s at 6-2 now) and gotten my championship ring for the day, but that’s coming eventually.

The New Computer Set-up: If X-Zibit was here, he’d be really excited, because my laptop is pimped out. Aunt Bert supplied a wireless keyboard and mouse, I bought some speakers and then added on a 80 gigabyte external hard drive, meaning the entire OC season two is definitely not being downloaded as we speak.

Definitely not at all, because that would be illegal.

The New Schedule: Despite not knowing anything about most of my classes beyond what Meg and NDToday have told me, which are all good, and being stuck in a Philo class Pete and I were going to rock together, the times of my classes are fantastic. Granted, I have to walk to the far ranges of campus, but it’ll be a good time.

Just wanted to throw up a post, more coming later.