So yesterday I went to New York for the day and it may have been one of the best 12 hour spans I've been in the city. Our time in there started with my first ride on the PATH stopping at where else but the in progress World Trade Center hub, which is a crazy sight in that you are right in "Ground Zero" watching people build stuff there after the reckoning the Cloverfield monster did. We went to Chipotle's for lunch although it was the first meal for most of us. Then we went canning at our respective spots having initially moderate success. We took a break and went our separate ways for the most part. I ended up going home where I had a nice hearty meal and then took a nap only to wake up to my brother playing Ken Griffey Jr.'s Slugfest on a N64 emulator. Six o'clock hit so I went back to meet up with the others. As it should be no surprise to anyone, cluster-fucked weekend service left us waiting at each stop while "traffic" cleared. We finally met up at Times Square where the characters finally started to appear including my favorite "I GOTTA SLEEP, GOTTA EAT, GOTTA SHIT, GOTTA COOK BREAKFAST MAAAAAAAAAN." While trying to figure out our next canning locale, we heard about a bar that serves as an underground Penn State Alum spot. We head down there and low and behold you can spot a banner that says "Welcome All Penn State Nittany Lions" We imediately think this is incredibly awesome and that about ends the trip. The entire time (especially after leaving my folks place) I thought that soon enough this is how life's going to be for me. Whether it'll be other trips to day trips to New York from school or after graduation, when I'm living far from my current home and just stop by to say "Hi!" to my family. Also this day helped to give me an idea of where to find fellow Penn Staters after my time at State College is done. Best Saturday so far this year and definitely top 10 lifetime.

-Mikhail

Friday night we had our usual brotherhood development starting at TGI Fridays and then at this pool hall. As we were leaving we decided to go to my friends place to just hangout some more. On the way there our newest brother Steve turned on his GPS to take us on our way over there. The GPS kept implying that we go straight ahead for about 6 miles, when our first and only possible turned was a little more than a block down. We took the only route we could go still "following" the GPS. After a couple of more turns out of our alleged way, Steve decided to restart the thing. So he did put in the destination and the same map came on. He looks through again and somehow then realizes that it was running on demo. Before he realized that we ended up on the right road that takes us straight to school on a complete stroke of luck.

-Mikhail

Well back to the 'burg Sunday. The break has been great, much better than last year's. I'm hoping the semester flies by while at the same time slow to enjoy.

-Mikhail

Bored as usual on this second (well now third) day of the newest of years, I began looking on Facebook, as I normally do when I'm bored, and started reading notes people have written for themselves on ways they're going to improve themselves for the upcoming year. I think this practice is the most arbitrary in "life-changing maneuvers" because you literally have decided that January 1st, 2008 is the day the rest of your life begins as opposed to it being the result of a personal event and/or epiphany any other time of the year (unless yours happened to have come around New Year's...Orl Korrect for you). With that said, instead of presenting ways I'm going to better myself this year, I'll submit to you a list of things for 2008:

• Somehow hover over a 2.0 GPA for my entrance to major requirement...pretty difficult with my 3.33 cumulative.
• Have a great time at THON considering it'll be the last with Harrisburg.
  
• Somehow manage to get a PS3 for when MGS4 comes out. (this should be higher on the list, but didn't think of it until now)
• Start a physical journal one which people can write their thoughts in as well, maybe just for the year as its gonna be one of these big transition years. (this was an idea I got from a great brother of mine Joe Marks)
• Intern somewhere (hopefully with David Letterdude or any other show network or cable)
• Work at The Door for a 5th straight summer
• Take time to go somewhere thats more North than Boston, more West than State College, more South than Charlottesville, East? not much there except Long Island...I guess I could go there too.
• Start life at University Park :-)

Well those are things certainly. Surely there's more to be covered, but I think I hit the points I know are coming up. As I sure learned last year more than ever, life is fuckin crazy. There's always something that is going to be changing and this year more than any other I remember, I'm expecting lots and lots of changes not only in my own life, but in the lives of the people around me and of course the country. So this is 2008, the year of things and stuff.

-Mikhail