Hey everyone, my name is Brendan and I am a freshman currently living in Thomas Hall first floor.. On the first day of school, I saw the campus in the middle of a rainstorm. Being as it was move in day, it was also like swimming outside, except I was required to have my clothes on. After dragging all of my stuff into the dorms (luckily there were upperclassmen to help) I got to meet my floor RA Matt. Once I got settled in, my parents left and I was free to roam the campus, this time with a coat of sorts on. I met everyone on my floor, which to my surprise, was either a golfer, a swimmer, or played an instrument, myself being a former swimmer. After meeting everyone, three girls ran down the hallway and started yelling “Ultimate Frisbee!!!” After hearing this, I looked to my roommate and said, “Ultimate Frisbee in the rain? Heck ya!” We then proceeded to play a round and gain a bit of a cold afterward.   Perhaps I should have worn more than shorts and a T-shirt.

 

 

The morning of the M climb was nothing out of the unusual for me.   I got up in the morning around 6 a.m. and got ready. However, soon after that my room began shaking with the sounds of Jimi Hendrix playing his… interesting version of the Star Spangled Banner.   Soon after the rest of the dorm woke up, which one kid actually managed to sleep through, we got our rocks ready and proceeded to the IM field. There our rocks were weighed, mine passed at 18 pounds (luckily because I heard that you are given a rock twice that size if it weighed less than 10 pounds), with the smaller rock given to a girl. It was then that we were given the Mines anthem. We began our journey. Very soon it became apparent that we, freshman, were targets with the upperclassmen throwing water balloons at us. We couldn’t just walk up. We also had to sing the fight song at random intervals. I found out quickly that my little piece of paper would not last long in this environment and I managed to learn the fight song very rapidly. Although, there were times when we were lucky and managed to catch the missiles headed towards us, and launch them back. Soon we were at the top of the mountain, all the freshman lined up around the big M. We tossed our rocks in, and then were locked inside.  Whitewash was thrown everywhere, with the rocks kept clean of the white wash.   Finally the gates were unlocked, with me wearing more whitewash than at least 20 rocks. The day ended with me having free lunch at the IM fields, and giving my sister, a Mines junior, a well deserved hug.

 

 

Mines is hard. Mines is really, really hard. Mines is harder than watching all of the Earnest movies in one sitting. That being said, it is a lot of fun because everyone is going through it at the same time. The first time I went to Chemistry, I thought I was in the wrong classroom, because it was filled with at least half of the freshman class. I snagged a seat near the front of the class because I did not pack my binoculars that morning. The professor was pretty cool though. We get at least a trivia during each class and it is always interesting. After leaving, I had to walk to the other side of the campus for my next class.   Luckily, Mines is a small school and it was only 4 blocks away. I have a few 8 am classes.   I enjoy these the most, because it’s not very hard to find a seat, as opposed to the later classes. A new experience I had is 3 hour labs. These labs range from watching chemical reactions occur to testing solubility of substances. Watching Potassium react with water has been my favorite so far. Let’s just say is a very fiery reaction. This ended my first two weeks of classes, with a chemistry test coming up in the near future. Hopefully the test questions revolve around lab.

 

                 

A few weeks ago, I attended the celebration of Mines which is basically a huge club fair. It was fun to visit each booth to see what they were, not to mention all the free food and candy being handed out. By the end of the fair I wanted to join about every club, but eventually I figured out that time is not a renewable resource.   I went to my first meeting of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) a couple of weeks ago. They had good food, as well as, an insight to women in an engineering environment. It was overall a fun meeting.  Other guys also went. Why not? - Professional advice, free food, and the location where many of the female engineers meet.   My favorite club, however, has to be the fencing club or the Society of Creative Anachronism as they are officially called. They meet on Wednesday nights for a couple of hours usually with me being horribly beaten by the advanced fencers. I like to think that every time I lose there is still room for improvement. There are still some club meetings I haven’t made it to yet, but I will keep all of you informed.

 

 

Okay not exactly a pool party of sorts, but I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the recreation center. Recently I had some extra time on my hands so I went up to the pool with a couple of my friends and to my surprise what do I find? A hot tub! Take it from me, there is nothing more fun than going off of the diving board, swimming for a while and then heading off to the hot tub. Although there is more than a pool up in the recreation center, there is a multitude of running machines as well as weight lifting equipment.   The running machines are my favorite though, they can read your blood pressure and adjust your workout accordingly -  that’s pretty cool. What is better after a workout than a cold beverage? On the bottom floor there is a juice counter where you can use your munch money to get drinks, trust me they are delicious. 

 

 

My first round of tests could have been better. I guess it takes more than just route memorization to do well on tests here. Chemistry is a hard class for everyone who is wondering. Luckily there is tutoring for people like me who need a little bit more. I think the tutors know me by my first name at this point as I see them on a bi-daily basis. I am glad to say that it worked though! I managed to pull off an A in chemistry and I am doing alright in physics. I still haven’t gotten my calculus test back, so wish me luck.

 

               

Dorms are a lot of fun. There is always at least one person to hang out with and this leads to many games of Ultimate Frisbee. Midnight Ultimate Frisbee is incomparable to the daytime kind. People are running all over the place, and you throw the Frisbee into the dark, hopefully to someone on your team. When there isn’t Frisbee going on outside, there is usually a random board or card game in the hallway. I played a round of UNO. It didn’t turn out very well in the end. I had half the deck in my hand, the defeat was embarrassing. There is also a first floor flag football team. Unfortunately I have class during the practices, so I couldn’t join. Well there is an Ultimate Frisbee game going on soon, so I will keep all of you informed. Until next time.