Well the year is finally at its end. I don't remember a year where things were just as incredibly erratic as they've been. Honestly I've felt maybe every conceivable emotion this year particularly more amounts of rage than ever. Of course it wasn't all that, I also feel that people appreciate my association with them more than ever, this was definitely felt most all summer while working at the Door. Equally, I've never appreciated the people in my life more than ever, especially my family and friends at home since I spent such a long time away from them this semester. School couldn't have been any better especially now that only a semester is in my way from the nirvana of higher education: University Park. 2008 is gonna be great, with all kinds of SIH!!s and "shake that bear"s ahead.

-Mikhail

Holy shit! What am I still doing up!?

-Mikhail

So last night we spent a good part of the night hanging out with the our brothers Shippensburg. It was a wonderful time hearing stories about various mishaps including broken ankles, extremely hairy asses and a very numb penis. It's always good to hear stories that happen at other colleges because somehow they always seem relevant to your experience where ever you are.

-Mikhail

Interesting day today...I overslept and woke up 25 minutes late for my EARTH final, which was no biggie since I finished with time to spare anyway. On the way to class I noticed the ice storm did some work on campus, giving all the trees and glass a nice cool protective coating. After that I spent most of the day in front of the TV watching this George Mitchell report unfold. It was interesting in that for the most part everyone found out at the same time about the names that were in it. On my way to ECON I was told class was cancelled so I headed to the library where I finally downloaded the report. I skimmed through it myself for a couple of hours, reading the accounts about players that I'm familiar with. Jason Giambi's was interesting in that he was one of the few that was an isolated incident at the beginning of his time on steroids until he of course met Greg Anderson putting him in the BALCO picture. I think that may be the only reason why he can talk about it because there were no other parties involved and whenever he did them it was at home instead of being connected to Radomski, McNamee, Jason Grimsley or Canseco. There was one part that almost seems comical and I'll provide that excerpt from the report:

"During the 1998 season (around the time of the injections), Clemens showed McNamee a white bottle of Anadrol-50.[386] Clemens told McNamee he was not using it but wanted to know more about it. McNamee told Clemens not to use it. McNamee said he took the bottle and gave it to Canseco.[387]

[387] McNamee stated that he showed the bottle to Canseco because he thought that Canseco was knowledgeable and he felt comfortable approaching him. According to McNamee, Canseco volunteered to take the bottle."

Well I don't where the next step will go, but Michael Wilbon couldn't have said it any better in that it is an embarrassing day for baseball.

-Mikhail

I don't know what kinda posting schedule I'm on but here goes my story. This weekend has been a great representation of this entire semester. Good times with great people, something incredibly ridiculous that we all knew may have happened and did, and of course me not having my camera on me to capture such a wonderful moment (really should have grabbed it when I went back to get my ping-pong balls). Anyway, I'm really glad that I was able to share that time with the people I did. One thing is for sure, I gave out as many hugs last night as I have all semester combined.

-Mikhail

The semester is finally winding down. I just finished my last problem set for economics, have a few more parts to do for my portfolio on Louisville (which is actually an interesting city), memorize my scene for theater and start working on my final presentation on game shows for pop media. Other than schoolwork, life is alright. Nothing overwhelmingly special going on, but have what is looking to be a good weekend ahead. Home in 2 weeks :-)

-Mikhail

Damn I hate days like these when a mountain of work piles on to one day, especially since I'll have to stop for at least an hour to watch House. Oh, well thats college.

-Mikhail

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about going home for next week. I'll have been away from home for almost 3 months and honestly never been more happy to be going back. The time here of course has been as interesting as ever meaning there's lots of material for a book to be published sometime. On Friday as soon as I get home, I'll be getting ready to go to my cousin's wedding which will be interesting, since I've never been to one. I'm more than ecstatic about seeing my awesome family and definitely sometime with the jerks as well.

In recent news, my weekend was pretty bland at best. Friday night I saw Dan in Real Life, which I lilked quite a bit. On Saturday I watched alot of college football since no one else was around to entertain. Much later in the night, I went my friend's place and drank, but the time there was brief and pretty awkward (perhaps this will be one of those stories for the book). Sunday was much of the same except football on the professional level and for the night time working at the Night of Giving, where I ended up buying a nice sweater. Hopefully this week goes by quickly and with some good times before Friday.

-Mikhail

MacBook is back in my hands with a bonus repaired top case. Now I gotta remember everything I had in here.

-Mikhail

Step 3 - Return

Product return pending (05-Nov-2007)

That was quick, I sent it in just on Friday. Well good to see things are about to come back to normal, maybe. Home is 11 days away, now that I've delayed my return just one day as to not miss any turkeys that may be cooked next Thursday. The call I made to Amtrak was rather amusing I'd say. The gent that helped me out with was real cool, definitely sounded like an old coot, which is what I imagined most Amtrak workers would be. You'll have to hear me explain this in person as it doesn't do him any justice in print, either that or call Amtrak yourself and have a reservation to change.

-Mikhail

It's safe to say this has been the most difficult weekend I've ever had. To start, in preperation for Saturday's events, on no evaluation of mine, we left at 4AM for State College to wait in line for College Gameday. Aside from a 2 hour nap earlier on Friday, I didn't sleep at all so I was up for about 30 hours straight noting that I've never fully gone 24 hours. I did get on television a few times (with help from my awesome banana costume), but it was just kinda boring being there even with our crazy pride + ESPN. We got lunch downtown and at the Creamery and on the walks to and fro people are saying "Hey Banana!" or singin "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time" which was really cool. Sometime later we did some tailgaiting having nice bits of deep-fried chicken and turkey.

At about 2.5 hours before kickoff we're waiting in line and the gates open. Everyone is bumrushing to get in (which can be seen in the photo gallery here) and we all just get pushed in by the crazies behind us. Then the game itself was just...wow. As my buddy Jonny Mack put it "I've never seen the student section as pissed off as it is." and he was right. After a promising opening drive, the defense got trampled and we couldn't get anything running on offense. After our glowstick experiment failed, tons of ripped pompoms went in the air resulting in kind of a blizzard. Really cool looking, but didn't help at all.

Finally I get back at 2, meet with my theater teacher to work on my monologue which went very well. At around 4PM today, my MacBook literally died. I'm in the library now trying see what the issue is and from similar stories, it looks like I've had a hard drive failure. From the countless stories I've read in the forums, recovery is possible, but kinda hard considering my lack of an external hard drive and of course my financial circumstances. So from this point on expect little to no internet interaction from me until at least Thanksgiving or if I get the situation handled at an Apple Service Provider (which is in Mechanicsburg and not a terrible drive for whoever I go with). This is going to suck serious ass and I'll be sure to put updates here or on Facebook of things.

-Mikhail

Last night, while bored, I decided to read another essay from Greg's end-of-summer present Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas and the article happened to be about lead singer of The Smiths, Steven Morrissey...although known more by just his surname or Moz since he went solo. Well it wasn't so much about him, but rather his new fan-hood of young latino folks. I found it so funny considering my semi-recent discovery of the Smiths and my status as a young latino. Its funny because the article is about a Los Angeles area Smiths/Morrissey convention in which the majority of the attendees are latinos in their late teens to early 20s and a few more pasty looking white people that saved by The Queen is Dead. Its a great article that I wish I could find online, but trust that its an interesting read.

-Mikhail

For the weekend which was supposed to be my untold homecoming, it ended up being really well spent. Friday night we had our Kappa Sigma semi-formal which turned out really well. The after-party was rockin, finally got my Flip Cup game going and got amazingly trashed. Saturday got up early for the Undergrad Open House which went well considering the grogginess due to the night before. Gave my first tour which went alright and went home and watched Penn State beat Indiana. I fell asleep right after the game and then a few hours later went canning for THON on 2nd Street where the drunken citizens of Harrisburg entertained and filled our cans. Also talked to the jerks as they got totally wasted, which was also fun adding to my great night. Had a really good night of sleep and woke up to do more canning at 1 today at the Hershey Outlets. Less drunk people, more kids and candy, but we also had the lion for a little while which is always entertaining. Then Red Robin for dinner and thats pretty much it.

-Mikhail

Another one of those amazing Penn State Saturdays...although outside of football we maybe wanted to stab our eardrums. Anywho, this college football season is ridiculous. Can't wait for the game against Ohio State which will be critical in deciding the national championship. Red Sox just got beat down in the 11th inning and the Rockies just keep on rollin. Raiders vs Chargers tomorrow should be a great game. I'll be home in almost a month wooooooooo.

-Mikhail

Never before have I had so much work I didn't want to do.

-Mikhail

This is going to be a very interesting off-season, that's all that needs to be said.

-Mikhail

With Penn State football having a slow start on the road and against the Big Ten, its been two great weekends for my other active teams. The Yankees of course completing the season long trek and making their way into their 13th straight playoff appearance with a wild card berth (further making our chances better considering the last 5 World Series winners were Wild Card winners). Then of course the Raiders displaying a much livelier offense already scoring more TDs than all of last year as well they've ended two 12-game losing streaks (last week an overall 12 game streak and this week a 12 game road streak).

With the rest of post-season baseball to figure out, I for one am rooting for a Colorado-San Diego 163 game season hopefully with Colorado making their way in just for kicks. At least half of New York may have done terrible things to themselves (the three I know may have already) in wake of the colossal Mets collapse. hope the Cubbies make the season worth while. Arizona sucks dick. I'm not too sure who to root for in the Red Sox/Angels series.

In other news things are going just fine here. The bulk of my extracurricular work has finally subsided, still haven't gotten my internet back even though I've completed my end of the deal. I've got like 187262108762319621 tests and assignments this week so I'll be busy.

Happy October hours away.

-Mikhail

It's good thing to have an outlet to let your mind speak. Two straight days of talking to this gorgeous chick (that I'm not the least bit interested in) bullshitting about how there are just people that you want to have nothing to do with (definitely not a great thing to talk about) as we watch for guys with nice calves (well she is, I just give approval).

In other pleasant news, I finally got my loan approved!

-Mikhail

Its weeks like this where I kinda wish there were someone recording every bit of my life so that my friends and family could see what it is I've been up to. So here it goes: This week (with an ass-load of help) I conducted interviews for Lion Ambassadors, which some were really good and others just horrific. As Vice President thats the majority of my job, so at least the bulk load of my duties is out. Finally had my hearing regarding my pirating and got off pretty light, probation for the rest of the semester, an online lesson thing about being a good "cyber citizen" and a four page paper on why copyright infringement is wrong. Bid dinner for Kappa Sigma making the obvious decision to not let in the pale anti-social motherfucker (being that we ARE a social fraternity). Finally the beginning of Kegs on 2nd softball off to an 0-2 start being outscored 30-5 (at least in two games unlike the Baltimore Orioles).

It goes without saying, life is good.

-Mikhail

Recipe For An Incredible Penn State Weekend:

• 59-0 raping of Florida International
• Division 1-AA team Appalachian State beating Michigan
• trip to the bookstore...just because
• HAMBURGERS
• beer + Amaretto = Dr. Pepper
• drunken volleyball
• meeting random motherfuckers and adding them on Facebook
• do it all again next week

-Mikhail