The Snow is not your friend....

Yes, believe it or not, it's a new blog posting, sitting here late at night, listening to the quiet, somewhat dissonant strains of Hundred by The Fray. mmmm. So we got a treat right here in west Lafayette just the other day... a snowstorm that blew right through and left us no snow whatsoever. But while it lasted it was nasty, and it definately taught me that, pleasureable as snow may be to play in, here in the wind tunnel of America, snow is not your friend. Not only does it seem to blow in every direction, but it blows like 20 m.p.h. in every direction. It's like radiation on a much larger scale, little particles tearing the skin off of your face. I'm serious!!! It's sweet relief when you finally get in a building.
I also had my first real illness here at purdue just this past weekend. Yup, Friday I began to get a tension in my throat, it felt like I was having trouble swallowing, and it was a bit sore also. Saturday, it just got worse, and I actually started taking medicine for it, and told myself if it didn't get better by Monday, I would go to the health clinic. Nothing else felt bad just my throat, but by sunday, that didn't matter... the pain in my throat alone was bad enough to make me feel miserable. I suffered through and went to the doctor Monday morning. They gave me a strep test, which came back negative today.... but they put me on antibiotics yesterday, and I'm to continue taking them until they're gone... and today I feel much much much better.
So here's where I put my little rant about me being so upset that crazy people would put FLORIDA in the BCS Championship bowl over Michigan... WHO DOES THAT?... that's like handing Ohio State the trophy. But I guess that about sums it up. I'm excited about Purdue going to a bowl in Orlando, which means I get a free Florida vacation this year!! Woohoo!
So the robot is due tomorrow, and it's actually ready!!! At least I hope it is... unfortunately, there is some of the programming that we can't test, since we need to transmit values to our robot to simulate what will happen tomorrow, and we have no way to do that. But our team is very happy with the way the thing is running. It's actually very suprising how much control we can have over this robot, especially since the environment used to program it is graphically based, more so than any other environment I have ever used. That's supposed to make it easy.... HAH!
I get to come home for Christmas break next thursday....

Overcome with sugar and spice and everything that makes you sick...

So I have a lot of desserts. Yes, all leftover my birthday. A BIG thank you to everyone who made me something!!! And yes, I had a really good birthday. That's strike three for Curtis Painter and the Boilermaker gridiron crew, though, three games lost in my presence... that's way too many, and for them to lose on my birthday? How dare they.
So I found out the exciting news that its almost 100% likely that I'll be able to come home for the play in November, on the 19th. Which excites me very much. I would put an exclamation point on that, but I'm too busy eating chocolate covered pretzels, mmmm.
So about that project about robots... yup, here's what we have to do. We're given a programmable lego mindstorms kit that has a programmable brain, and we're supposed to program the robot with the logic to be able to:
1. Follow a 1-inch thick circuitous black line.
2. Follow a "broken" black line, represented by 1-inch diameter black circles spaced 1 inch apart.
3. Interact with some sort of station which is capable of exchanging information with our robot.
Should be fun. If you're so bored that you'd be interested in looking at the full project description, you can access it (at least for the rest of the year) at web.ics.purdue.edu/~mrockey/robotproject.pdf
So. Yeah. The "Here Comes the Pain Train" show came together in 5 days, which was pretty impressive. I found out that the show was actually very very very similar to the show that Concord High School in Elkhart, Ind. did for their show last year, which happens to be the school where our new assistant director Max Jones just came from. So basically, he did the same show with us, that he did last year. I think. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: The Concord High School Marching Band was the Class B Indiana Grand Champion Marching Band. Just a little side note there.
Oh yeah. I did go to church again this week, for those who might ask. And we get monday and friday off of band. And I'm done now.

Pumpkin is not just a pet name for your significant other...

So, yeah, I had time last night to carve my pumpkin that I bought. Here's a good picture of it. But that's about all the time I have to write, because I have to read a selection for speech, preferably before speech starts!!!

Forecast: Really Cold.

So, yeah, its pretty much freezing here. But I'm sitting here in my nice warm dorm room, with my hands resting on my pleasantly warm computer, and the soothing, crisp, pleasant sounds of Jars of Clay restoring my ears from their frostbitten state. Oh my.
So I have a Chemistry test tonight, but I really don't want to take it. Yes, I'm pretty much ready, but I just don't want to take it. I've really been putting it off. Yes, I put off studying on Saturday, even though I had time after the AMAZING half-time show the band did (making up for the football team's lousy performance on the field). Yes, I just sat around and watched a movie. And yes, I slept in really really late on Sunday. I did study Sunday afternoon, and then I went to church sunday night. Then after church I just wasted time again.... I walked down to the shopping center where EB games, Starbucks, Panera, and Borders are, and I walked around Borders for a nice change of pace. It was really relaxing.
Today, I'm going to go get a pumpkin, in the hopes that I will have the time, the patience, and the tools to carve something neat. But maybe I won't. At any rate, I'll still have a pumpkin.
Mmmm, I love the smell of winter. Its just so crisp and clean, and you can smell the snow on the air... I walked outside after church, and there I caught it, it was mostly dark outside, and a chilly breeze was blowing, but I could smell a Hoosier winter on the air... there's nothing like that feeling of knowing that snow, winter, coats, jackets, blankets, beanies, snowmen, Christmas, all of the above are just around the corner. mmmmmm.
So P.K. Imbrie, my engineering professor, said our next project was coming out sometime this week, and it was going to be a lot harder than the other two projects we've done so far. Yay.... hopefully it will actually involve programming... its supposed to involve robots, and programming the robots... i'll keep you posted on that one.
Anyway, so details have been requested about this Engineering 126H class... its proper name is "Engineering Problem Solving and Computer Tools", and basically its divided up into a lecture, where we learn about engineering problem solving methods, and how to think and learn like an engineer, and learn statistic and curve-fitting methods and stuff, and then a lab where we learn various computer tools: MATLAB and Excel mostly, though we done some UNIX command line stuff, and we'll be getting into some VBA stuff that is worked into excel, so basically macros and editing macros with VBA. But it's definately the class that requires the most work, and it takes a lot of hours outside of class. One team meeting for Morris the "Mach" Boilermaker Special lasted from 8 p.m. til' 2 a.m.
Well, that's all I can think of for the moment.

All Quiet (Relatively) on the Western Front

So yeah, I haven't posted in a month. Sorry about that. Anyway, so yeah, I finished the mini-project mentioned in the last post, and just yesterday finished the second project, which was a rubber-band car which had to go as far as possible with a limited amount of materials. I'll post a picture of it. Looks pretty sweet, huh? Of course, you recognize it! It's the boilermaker special! Actually, its a "mach" boilermaker special, named Morris Code. His motivational quote? "Run, Morris, Run!" Oh yeah, the picture is Morris in construction. The coating? Duct tape. Morris actually ran an average of 17 ft, but we once got a max of 22 ft. out of him, which was amazing to see. Unfortunately, during our official demonstration, not only did a rubber band stick, causing him to stop, but then a wheel also fell off, meaning we had to go find super glue to glue our wheel back on.

Okay, so I joined a new band, yes I'm still in marching band, but I also tried out for GABS (Gold and Black Sounds) which is the Women's Basketball band. Why women's? The purdue women's team is better than the Purdue men's team, and I hear GABS has more fun. And yes, we have practices and everything. There's about 80 people in the band. This means, however, that I have to take a concert band in spring in order to be a part of GABS.
I've also, as of now, done 2 AAmbassador outings. That's a clever play on words, since the band is the AAMB (All-American Marching Band), and we're ambassadors. Basically we go out in the morning to a local elementary school and talk to the 5th graders there about our band, let them try our instruments, and teach them how we march and stuff, and basically get them fired up about band so they'll join their 6th grade band. On the last outing, we had representation from every instrument, which was really cool, except I was the only trumpet, and we actually play for them, which was a lot of pressure. But its really cool, and it makes you feel really good to do, and its an excuse to wear my uniform, which is awesome.

Okay, so really exciting, check out this picture!! Yeah, that's right, I went to Cedar Point one sunday in late september!!! It was absolutely the bomb, even though I really didn't know anybody who went....
So I did pass my first round of exams without too much trouble. I got decent grades I think.... I don't think I did too badly... Speech is probably my easiest class, I haven't missed hardley any points in that class, especially on the acutal speeches. Maybe I just have an easy T.A.... I'm even keeping up in engineering, which suprises me. Though the programming experience I had before coming here has helped IMMENSELY... I have a couple people in my group who don't have any experience with that, and yeah... they're having trouble grasping the whole programming/scripting thing. BIG shout out to Uncle Eric for giving me a BIG jump on the programming.
So, purdue is 5-2, 2-1 in the big ten..... woohoo, we have an excellent chance of a bowl game, very likely somewhere warm!!! I'm so excited for that.... we had a crazy september for performances, all 5 weekends in september were games, and the last weekend was the Notre Dame game which we travelled to, which was a really really cool experience, since we got to march into the stadium and actually sit on the sidelines, right there on the grass. Wow. Being in Ross-Ade Stadium is just about as awesome though... nothing like Big Ten football anywhere. Amazing.
Well, I'll wrap this up. Hopefully I'll find more time to write more often.
Thanks for reading.

I did not evolve from an amoeba!!!

I'm not used to pulling this kind of hours, but right now I have a satisfied feeling, like I know everything is going to work out... this week. ;) What happens if I'm so sleepy tomorrow morning that I miss my 7:30 class? Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?
Beyond that, hmmm, why the satisfied feeling? Because I got a lot done tonight. I got my math work done for tomorrow, my bonus for ENGR126H that was due tomorrow turned in online, I met with my small group to work on the mini-project we were assigned that's due Monday... the project is to build the biggest structure we can out of 50 straws that will support as much weight as possible. We mostly got that done, and the structure is mostly built, we just have a report to write and some of the supporting structure to build. I also have my first speech to give in speech class tomorrow, so after project time, I came back to the dorm and cracked down on that.... thank goodness my Chem lab this afternoon was fairly easy; it was just titration, so it was pretty easy, just repetitive and time-consuming, and pretty precise, so..... I think I'm ready for tomorrow and more importantly this weekend.... which, conicidentaly, this saturday happens to be band day, a fairly easy day, since we only march one song, and the rest we just stand there. So, its going to be interesting... the game is versus Ball State, which according to one of my section leaders "Ball State? They might as well just lay down and die..." But the way we've been playing lately... well, we might not do as well as expected. For other comments... I don't really have any. :) That's about it. Oh yeah.. "SUPRISE! A NEW POST!". I forgot that at the beginning.
My love to all.... I really miss you. Big shoutout to Jordan.... I miss the headbanging and the air drums. Man... I wish I was back home, my roommate doesn't get the whole jamming thing, he likes music, but he doesn't sing and jam along... We'll have to have a jam session over fall break.
Woot, woot, but I digress.... **dismayed look**
I guess that's it for now.
Matt

Long Weekend

Hmm, I guess its been a while since I've posted. Well, time to fix that. Let's see...
On Friday, we still had rehersal, even though the band practice field was ridiculously messy and muddy. But we got the night off, we didn't have anything, so I took a night off and relaxed. Not really, I had homework to do.
Saturday morning, the call was 9 a.m. at the drill field, in street clothes. We rehersed for an hour, then we dismissed for an hour to go get our uniforms on and whatever else we needed to do... we met back at the hall of music at 11:00. Back at the hall of music, we had inspection, where we got counted off if we didn't have our music marked properly, if our spats had dirt, if our pants weren't the right length, if our hats were not ajusted properly, etc. Once inspection was over, we marched to Slater Hill, where we performed a pre-game concert, basically a pep session. After that, we got a 10 min. break, so Grammi and Grandpa were there so I could get some water and food. Then we marched to Ross-Ade Stadium, did the pre-game show, watched the awful first half, performed our half-time show, which was a re-enactment of the 1967 Rose Bowl Show, and then watched the much improved second half. Purdue won over Indiana State (whew! I would hope so...) 60-35, and then we did the post-game concert on the field, and then marched to the fountain in the middle of campus and did our fountain concert. From there we dismissed, thank goodness. I was so gross and sweaty by that time.....
After the game, Grammi and Grandpa took me out to Applebee's and I had steak... so good, I missed steak.
On sunday, I accidentaly slept in, obviously I needed it, since I slept in til quarter to one or so. I kinda split my time between work and play, mostly work, but then around 5:00 Uncle Josh came and picked me up, so I spent the night at his house. It was good to get off campus, at least just for one night, but I was ready to get back.... it was weird. Anyway, I had a nice break, but yeah.... it was good. I came back yesterday at around 5:00, so I had to study before my chemistry quiz, which turne out to be really easy and only consisted of three questions. Anyway, yeah, thats been my weekend. And its back to school, but I actually have most of this weeks work done.... okay, not really, but I have some of it done.

Up late with Homework....

I'm trying to do all the homework I can so I get all the bonus I can and so I don't miss anything and therefore get points taken off. I just now stopped working on some stuff for ENGR126H, so yeah... that's gonna be a pretty intense course I guess.
anyway, yesterday we didn't march during band class, we just sat on the Elliot Hall of Music stage and listened to people talk about how to wear our uniforms properly and also how our grade was going to be calculated, and what kind of things would lose us "quality points". Then we spent the rest of the time playing music on the stage, some old, some new... we played music from The Incredibles, that was pretty tough stuff. Today, we did have to march, though, and it was actually okay because we were basically getting misted the whole time... there was never any heavy or even real rain, just like a fine mist that varied in intensity and was falling the entire time we were out on the field. It was refreshing...
For our Chem Lab tomorrow, we were given the objective of measuring the volume of a gas at different temperatures, and we didn't even get a scale.... we have to write an experiment outline, which is due right once we get into the Lab on Wednesday. I thought all weekend about how exactly I was supposed to measure the volume of a gas... and I finally came up with the answer today, I was so proud of myself. So thats done....
I think thats probably all for now.... I'm looking foward to the game on Saturday, we are going to beat the sycamores into a woody pulp.... ;)

A Waste of time...

Well, I feel like the last two days have been a complete waste of my time. I basically just sat around and did nothing. I got a shower.... does that count as something? Maybe I did homework, but I really got nothing accomplished. Yes, I went to church this morning, at University Church again.... And then did nothing else. I put in an order for my engineering book that I'm missing hopefully the bookstore will get it in soon.
Friday night was a different story. Since it was our last free weekend in quite a while, the trumpets had another trumpet night out.... about 30 or 35 of us met at 7:30 and headed to Brookston, IN, which is about 15 min. away. We went to a little mom and pop cafe/ice cream shop owned by one trumpet's aunt. We had "Redneck Sundaes" which was a Pop-Tart fried and stuck in a bowl of ice cream... it was REALLY GOOD! I had a raspberry pop-tart in chocolate ice-cream... So, basically, that was my weekend. We did get the entire pre-game show and the half-time show on the field in one week, which is evidentally pretty good. Well, thats about it...

All Cleared Up

Okay, evidentally it was just me having the problem. I use Mozilla's Firefox browser, and evidentally, it was just firefox that was making it look like I hadn't updated my blog, and just on my computer. So now I just use IE whenver I want to edit my blog. So everything's fine....
I'm posting this right now because I have a rather large break until Speech class at 2:30, and I have really no homework, so I'm taking advantage of that and updating. Though... nothing really exciting has happened. I did pick up my Math textbook, which came in on Tuesday, so that's good... I have a Calc book of my own now. I also had a Chem lab yesterday, that takes the place of band on Wednesdays. It got out early, though, so I ran down to the marching field so I wouldn't miss much... I actually didn't miss any of the actual new drills that we learned. It was really hot, though, and I sweated up a storm... I was afraid I was going to get dehydrated. I'm going to have to take better care of myself.
Well the week is almost over... one more day of school, and then the weekend.

Having Problems

I'm having trouble posting to the right page... for some reason Blogger isn't letting me post to my main page... instead its putting all my posts in my archive for the week of the 20th instead of on my front page. This is basically just a test post to see if reposting will help things out any.

An Odd Day

Today was an odd day. I didn't have any class until 9:30, so I got up at a reasonable hour and ate breakfast before class. Then I headed off to chemistry recitation, which was definately not worthless, since the TA covered stuff the professor wasn't going to bother with covering in class. Then after I got out of class, I went and traded in a worthless Response Pad for my engineering class-- it seems I didn't have the right one. So I did that at University Bookstore, then walked to Follet's Bookstore near the stadium to get several things for my Chem lab on Wednesday, and the NEW response pad that we needed to have. After I got through all that, I still had a quite a bit of time left before my next class at 2:30, so I got all my stuff together and went down to the basement and did laundry, which was great to get out of the way on a Tuesday afternoon when practically no one else was trying to use it. It didn't take me too long, and when I got done I still had time to go eat and clean up before my speech class at 2:30. Speech was fine, should be fun if I actually try to enjoy myself in there. I had to run from there right to band, and we basically finished up the forms for the pre-game show, which is great....
I spent most of tonight doing homework, though before I left the Hall of Music, I did get my uniform, which is completely awesome.
I also had two completely random encounters today with people I know from outside of Purdue. One was with Sawyer Sparks, who is a guy from the Bloomfield area, who transferred to Purdue this year. The other was this: I was sitting in the Hall of Music, waiting to go get my uniform, when around the corner comes this one little girl that I had to supervise during my stint as a helper at the Shawnee Children's Theatre this year. I knew this girl was from West Lafayette and that her dad was a professor or something at Purdue, but I never expected to run into her! I guess her dad is actually Michael Plake, who is basically the director's executive assistant, so I've been under his direction like every day.... that was so completely random.
That about wraps it up for today....

First Day of Class

Well, my first day of classes went fine. It was long... I had math in the morning, then a big of free time where I posted earlier, then I had to go to a Chem class followed directly by a beginning engineering class. All the classes were a bunch of "What do you expect from this class and what we expect from you yada yada stuff" that you had to listen to. Then I had another big break in the afternoon, I went and scheduled an appointment for my second and final chickenpox vaccine shot. In band today, we got our first charts and we learned how we will make the floating PURDUE letters on the field... I'm in the second U, down near the bottom of the left hand line. So my first time looking at drill charts. Interesting.
Tonight I got some homework done, but pretty much nothing interesting happened today.

Lazy Day...

Just to clarify, this is sunday's post. Yes, I've taken my first class, which went fine, but right now I don't know when I'll get a chance to post again, because I don't know how intense things will get this week.
So yesterday, I slept in till 12:00 and I didn't go to church, and I kind of feel bad about it, but I'm sure God understands my severe need for sleep. anyway, hopefully I won't have to skip anymore. Anyway, after I woke up, I had to eat lunch and go to a survey thing conducted by UCLA for all the incoming freshmen, they wanted to know everything about our opinions and stuff. I flew through it, because the survey was at 2:00, and I had a welcome reception for the first-year engineering honors program at 2:30, so that was pulling it close, but I made it. That reception lasted forever, and then I had a floor meeting where they gave us more general information about Cary Club, the residence government, and the ground rules, and what our R.A. had planned for us as far as activities, and stuff like that. That was at 5:00. After that I was free, so after that I went out for pizza (students get a $6 discount on a large pizza from pizza hut!), played some ping-pong and foosball, and just sat around socializing. that was pretty much my day from start to finish.
This morning.... 7:30 classes are chilly, I found that out. Note to self: wear jeans on Wednesday.

doesn't feel like a saturday...

It really doesn't feel like a weekend... I still had to get up and be at the Music Hall at 8:30. Because it rained last night, they had us playing like all morning, and then we went over the post-game routine. We played again in the afternoon until like 3:30 or something like that. Then I got the afternoon off, so I just chilled.
I ordered my books yesterday... That was definately a good thing to do.
so yeah, tonight, the entire trumpet section got together at 7:00 and carpooled like 15 minutes to the brother of the trumpet leader for a section party, there were so many people there... There was a giant bonfire, a 150-ft. slip-n-slide, a trampoline, and since it was somebody's birthday recently, they had rented a soft-serve ice cream machine. There was also a projector with a playstation 2 hooked up to it, so we sat around and watched videos of the Purdue marching band shows from the past 2 years.... that was interesting. So I got back around 11... it was actually a lot of fun. Anyway...

I'm a member!

And the results: I made it in!!!! I'm officially in the ranks of the Purdue All-American Marching Band! That's pretty sweet... They gathered all the trumpets all together and somewhere along the way to where we were going we lost the 5 trumpets that were getting cut... they kind of just dissapeared, I guess the student leaders took them out, because when we got to where we were going they said, congradulations, you've all made it in. There are 5 "Saturday Staff" who will each have to do 2 shows at some point, so some people will get rotated around so the saturday staff get a chance to perform; that will probably be the weakest performers on a certain week that get taken out.
Now I can officially call myself a band member.... I get to visit Notre Dame, and Penn High in Mishawaka, and if Purdue actually does well this year and wins more games than it loses, we'll go to a bowl game, which would be absolutely sweet!
We got an extra long break for lunch after playing a bit more music as the finalized band. After lunch, they marched us from the hall of music to the marching practice field, up to Slater Center, which is the outdoor concert location of the pre-game concert, to pump up fans... then they marched us right into Ross-Ade stadium, and showed us where we will sit, right in the middle of the U. They released us right from Ross-Ade, so it was nice and close to my dorm, since my dorm's right across the parking lot. We had the rest of the night off, so I got a shower and then hung out with some friends and played DDR and Guitar Hero, it was a lot of fun.
Now I'm ready to go to bed....

A new change to the blog.... anyone and everyone can post comments now... I just found that option and turned it on.
Well this is it.... by the time most of you read this, I will already know whether or not I have made it into the band. After the president of Purdue speaks to us, we get taken into sections and told who stays and who goes. Hopefully I'll stay... today was "marching auditions", as if this whole week hasn't been our audition. It was our last chance to impress our student leaders, who will be deciding who they want in their sections. We had to perform a Block-P march in hi-chair, lo-chair, and glide steps. We also had to lo-chair up the field playing Hail Purdue at tempo 172, which is nearly 3 beats a second.
On the march back to the Hall of Music, we took a detour off the street into the bottom level of a parking garage and played Hail Purdue while marching through.... THAT was interesting.
Well, I'll keep you posted.... trust me, you'll know whether I make it into band or not....

Pictures! (Finally)

I got my package in the mail, which includes the adapter that will let me transfer pictures from my phone to my computer. So take at look at some of this stuff.
This is me in front in the entryway of the Northeast Cary Quad building. My room is in the picture: its windows the second pair of windows directly above me, the ones with the curtains slightly open... yes, my room is precisely in the center of the building on the highest floor.
This is a view from the doorway of my room, post-rearranging. Futon and T.V. on the left, lofted beds and desks on the right. Yes, its a sweet setup, yes there is a huge walk-in closet to my left, and check out the next pic...This is a view of the semi-private bath which is attached to our room across from our closet. Big shower, private bath.... yes, this is the suite life.
More marching and playing today... the most notable thing we did today was "Fountain Hail" which all the trumpets did... we all went and stood in the middle of a shooting fountain and played Hail Purdue while getting competely soaked fully clothed. It was actually a lot of fun.... I'm getting better at this marching stuff, but I'm still not sure if I'll make it into the band... they have pretty high standards and I'm getting kind of nervous. I REALLY want to be in it.

Nearing the Limit

Now I begin to approach the point where I just wish I was back home. Not because I'm not enjoying myself here... I'm just tired. I want to be with my family, with my friends at home, in my own bed. But I know this is my bed now, and these are my new friends... My body is tired, my mind is tired, I'm severely in need of alone time. But aside from that, I'm having a BLAST!
Today, I got up and actually went to breakfast at Ford dining court, and then went to rehersal. The upperclassmen got here today and had auditions until about 3:00. At 3:00 they marched from Elliot all the way down to the practice field where all us freshmen were, and joined us. After dinner, we actually got an oppotunity to go over the basic again, this time with the upperclassmen... about 400 people, all instrumentalists and auxilaries included. It was an awesome sight to see, 400 people snapping to attention on command. After about an hour of practice on the field, we marched down the street back to Elliot, in Purdue marching fashion, which was new for all the Freshmen... we just stood in rank and marched beside upperclassmen and watched and copied what they did. 400 people marching in ranks of 10 in a huge line down the street all in step and playing Hail, Purdue is truly an awesome sight, but even more awesome to be one of those people! We then proceeded to fit all 400 of us in a comparitively tiny orchestra rehersal room and then practice music... wow, that was amazing... that's like all the kids in Bloomfield High and Jr. High put together.Its an exhilirating experience, and the expectations are for you to be as close to perfect as possible, which is a great standard to be held to.. as much as I complain about being tired, I know band camp is awesome!

The Fundamentals

Today we had to be up and in Elliot Hall of Music (henceforth ELLT) by 8:30, supposedly to attend a convocation for people doing the Freshman weeklong orientation, Boiler Gold Rush. When I woke up, though, it was cloudy... when I started to walk to ELLT it started to pour. So I ran from tree to tree, taking shelter as often as I could. Anyway, the covocation thing didn't start until like 9:30, and it was in the ELLT auditorium. that was a purdue sports convocation so it was pretty boring and LONG. After that we played in the orchestra room until lunch, mostly warm-ups and hail purdue. After lunch, which we had an hour and a half, we were required to meet on the co-rec field, which is the intramural sports field, which is a 15 minute walk from ELLT... yeah, that was a bit tiring. Once out there we started learning Purdue-style marching: standard Attention, left-face, right-face, horns up and down, mark time, the glide? step, the lo-chair step and the hi-chair step, which i struggled with. They had us out on that field until 4:30, with barely any break. From 4:30 to 6:30 we had dinner, then we met back out on the marching band practice field, which is right next to the co-rec field, and we reviewed the stuff we learned earlier, only with the drums and auxilary band (flags), and we did some 8-to-5 stuff (that's 8 steps to 5 yards). Then we went back to ELLT for some more playing, and we just got out of there about a half-an-hour ago. They pushed us to the limit......
Oh yeah, and a tip... don't turn your fridge so cold that your milk freezes....its a pretty bad deal if you do, trust me, I found that out.

The REAL first day

So yeah, today is sunday... my alarm went off at 8:30, when I meant it to go off at 9:30.... long story. Anyway, I went to church at 11 at university church, which is an interdenomination church on campus. It was okay, and Dr. Will Miller gave a great message. After that, I went to a luncheon that also started at 11, so I missed almost all of it. I got food, anyway, free food, that's what counts...
    When I got back, my roomate, Tyler from St. Louis, was moving in, so I kind of helped with that... later we rearranged the furniture and stuff so everything would fit and stuff, I'll post a picture once I get the equipment to do so... I had to be at the Elliot Hall of Music at 5 to check in, so I checked in and sat there for about an hour and half, which was pretty worthless, except I got to meet the trumpet leaders, and some of my fellow trumpets, which was pretty cool. Then the director, Jay Gephart, talked for about an hour about the staff, their credentials, what we would be playing, and what to expect in the next couple of days. The auditioning freshmen for band camp filled up the seating of an entire orchestra, so that was pretty neat... Then we had playing auditions, which made me really really nervous, but it was okay, and the audition went really well, I think... they don't actually tell us how we did. We don't find out if we made it until friday. Then there was "mixer", they gave us cookies and punch and told us to socialize, so I did.....
          Anyway, I have to get up and be at the music hall at 8:30, sooo... that's about it.

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Day #1...

So Here I Am at purdue. Everything is fine here, I'm living the high life compared to most of the students here, especially the other freshmen: I have a Cary Quad Suite, which is probably twice the size of a normal dorm room, plus it attaches to a private bath that's only shared with one other room.
Yesterday, I met some new people: Brett, who lives across the hall from me, Mark, who lives on down the hall, Jimmy, who's my R.A., and Paul, who I haven't really talked to yet. Mark and I played some ping-pong yesterday, but he's definately better than I am he beat me four games to one.
Today is the big day: playing auditions, and I'm really nervous. I think I'm going to go find a church a little bit later. Until then, I guess its breakfast time!