Grades came out yesterday. They weren't too bad, but it was apparent that this was by far the hardest semester I have had. It didn't help that my measurements prof decided to give me a "c" in his class. On the plus side, I now have completed 95 hours and will be eligible to get my Aggie ring. I will be in the second round of people to receive their rings in my class as my buddy got his this semester. So I will be getting boots and my ring in one semester; that's something to get excited about!

One more day!

Us Aggies are sitting here on the brink of the start of Christmas. The weather has been beautiful (75 and muggy) and most of us are happy but still stressed out as tomorrow is the last day of finals. Some of us will be moving on to bigger and better (possibly) things. For the rest of us, we will go home, play a little, sleep a lot, and return in January ready (not really) for another semester of school. I personally have one more exam after which I will be jubilantly returning to the piny woods. Here's to a month without circuits, fluid flows, sensors, and weird greek symbols!

Finals

Its been a while since I last posted, but not much as happened. We are now in the middle of finals (hence the long break from posting) and its gotten rather difficult to focus on school anymore. I just got back from my National Guard drill. We had a Christmas party for the entire unit and me and the other A&M cadets got to wear our A&M Corps uniforms to the party. One of the A&M cadets is a senior so we even had boots there. Its was pretty fun. I got to show off all the different parts of my uniform to several of the soldiers which was interesting as there is little correlation between the Corps and Army uniforms. Capt. Singleton (out CO) is doing what he can to make out drill experience as useful as possible by giving us different assignments and relating what we do back to the active duty experience. So far the National Guard has been good for me.

Elephants and Bonfire

It was an eventful Tuesday! First we had elephant walk. Elephant walk is a long standing tradition at A&M where the senior class walks around the campus like dying elephants, visiting all the important places on campus. The significance of this walk is that once they graduate they will not stand in the student section of the stands ever again. What this event means to us juniors is that '08 has died and that we are very close to taking the reins of the Corps from them.

Later that night, thanks to some much needed rain, we got to burn bonfire. As the bonfire is no longer built on campus, we have to deal with county regulations and such to be able to burn it. It has been so dry here that Robertson county had enacted a burn ban and only lifted it because we received three inches of rain over the weekend.
Despite bonfire being off-campus now, it continues to be a great unifying event for all those that participate in cut, stack, and burn. It gives students a chance to get out and work (rather competitively) towards a common goal every year. As we do as much of bonfire by hand as we can, it requires a massive effort from many students to successfully build.
There seemed to be a good turnout to burn and everyone had a good time. We should beat t.u. this year as the centerpole stood past midnight thanks to the more stable design that is used to build bonfire now. I hope everyone is having a good thanksgiving and standby for another post after we beat the hell outta t.u.

Bonfire Rembrance

Today eight years ago at 2:42 am, not a mile from my dorm, the bonfire stack collapsed leading to the death of 12 Aggies. This morning, at 2:42, Aggies gathered at the Bonfire Memorial in the cold and wet, to remember those Aggies and to comfort their families. One of those Aggies was a freshman in my outfit. He had relieved his old lady on the stack just minutes before the stack collapsed. As rescue workers attempted to free trapped students, he lay on the stack severely injured, directing the workers to others students. He told them "I'm alright, go get him out" until he was told that they needed to move him so that they could save others. He died in the hospital a day later, the last of the twelve. As the years roll on, the memory of Bonfire has faded and the size of the group at the memorial has shrunk. If you are a student here at A&M, don't forget those Aggies, and remember that Aggies are known for what they do, not for themselves, but for what they do for those around them.

Beowolf

So I just got back from watching the Beowulf movie. It was alright I suppose, but much of the dialogue was really corny and the entire movie was animated which didn't seem too work too well as many of the humans looked rather fake. Having never read Beowulf I don't know if it follows the original story closely, but it felt like a movie that was built to show off 3D effects and not to be a strong movie in its own right. I'm not too peeved, only because student tickets here are only four dollars.

Fun times in Greek

So as well as studying mechanical engineering, I am also taking a class on Greek. A major part of the class has been doing in class readings. In these readings we have met a Greek farmer, Dicaiopolis, his family, and his lazy slave, Xanthias. Right now you have to feel kind of sorry for Dicaiopolis because in the past two weeks his son has been struck blind in a wrestling match and the doctor told Dicaiopolis to sail to Epidaurus so that he can pray to the god of healing for his son. So now Dicaiopolis, a poor farmer, is at a port feeling very small and lost. I have and will continue to translate with anticipation.

Aggies and RUF

Well the Aggies finished out the NIT tourney strong with a commanding win of UTEP (or at least that's what Lans and Fletcher said ten minutes ago). From what I have heard, people are really positve about Turgon and the level that the team is playing at right now. I went to RUF tonight and there were a few new faces which is encouraging. I spent the ten minutes of the meeting handing out free CD's to everyone, but we still have a ton left. The CD's have several of the more popular songs at RUF from several years ago on them. I really enjoy the songs, but mother dear thinks that the person we got to sing had too thin a voice. Oh well, you can't please everyone.

Till Tommorow

So the C's & T's strip in the Batt today was spot on (go see it here). We "punish" fish for performing scholastically and "reward" them for failing. Personally I think a little more stress scholastic stress (fish through zips) would probably help everyone improve their grades.

Post #1!

Howdy,
As this will be my first post at this blog I suppose an introduction is in order. My name will be Cadet Homer (this name comes from the main character in a comic strip in the Batt, the on campus newspaper) and I am a cadet in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M. I am currently studying Mechanical Engineering and am training with Army ROTC with the intent of becoming an officer. Along with solving math and physics problems (not really) I enjoy messing with computers and photography. I hope that I will be able to reflect my interests in the corps, technology, and photography in my posts here.