The Surprise!!

Just to change things up, instead of talking about how the football game went this weekend and how V Tech won again, I am going to tell you my plan for next weekend and how I am planning on going home.

This coming weekend is fall break for us, and only a few days ago I wasn’t planning on doing anything the whole weekend but watch the football game and do homework, maybe play some sports while I am at it. This all changed when my friends and I decided to go back home for fall break and surprise our parents by just showing up at the door step.

This plan came up since we would not be able to go home till thanksgiving if we didn’t go home this coming weekend. We are planning leaving on Thursday night after all of us are done with our classes. We plan on getting there at about 10 at night. I can’t wait to see the reaction of my parent when they see me standing at the doorstep. I am really hoping that my mom freaks out when she sees be standing at the door since she hasn’t seen me in a while and she wasn’t expecting me at all.

I plan to go home and visit my school and also visit my friends at the University of Maryland in college park and in Baltimore County. Thursday night I just plan on spending time with my family and catching up on everything I have missed in the month and a half that I have been away from home. Since my parents have work the next day I will probably go hang out with my friends after I spend time with my friends.

The next day I plan on going back to my high school and visiting with some of the friends who are still in high school and also visiting my teachers and also my coaches who I haven’t seen in about 5 months. This should be an awesome time since I loved high school. Going back to my old school will be somewhat awkward since I don’t go there anymore and I was so used to going there.

After school I am going to go to the cross country team practice, and might even join them and do their work out. This would be awesome since I haven’t run on a team since I stopped going to high school. This was the most amazing time of my day when I was in high school since it would get me away from all the work and help me release all the stress that I have compiled throughout the whole day.

After this I plan to do back to my friends’ house and then have game night. Game night was invented when we were in the tenth grade. Game night is basically when we play board games till like two in the morning and watch sports center over and over again. The games include Balderdash, Scattergories, Apples to Apples, and Uno. It is a group of six of us just sitting in a room and having fun for hours.

On Saturday I plan on spending the whole day with my cousin and maybe going down to UMCP to visit my friends. I haven’t seen my friends in a month and a half and I was used to seeing them like every day, therefore I miss them so much. Over the summer we would spend at least 5 days a week together, and before that we would see each other in school all the time. The reunion should be amazing and apparently they have a party for me to go to since they are still in school and don’t have fall break till next week.

Finally on Sunday I plan on spending the day with my family and going to church we would probably eat breakfast together like we used to before I left for college. This was a family tradition, go to church every Sunday and then eat breakfast together.

Then will probably come the saddest part of the weekend when I have to leave. This is probably even worse for my mom since she is not used to me leaving home all the time, and not living there all the time. It was especially hard for her since I am so far away and can’t go home very often and they cannot visit me often either.

I will probably leave Maryland at about 4 with my friends, hopefully having had a good weekend and spend enough time with my friends and family. This trip will be good for me since I won’t miss my friends and home that much. At least not as much as much as I would if I didn’t go home now. I can’t wait for next weekend to get here.

Rain Rain Go Away....

It was game day once again and unlike all the other football games, it was pouring when I woke up in the morning and I had no tickets which was no surprise to me since I have not won a lottery yet to any of the football games at tech. This is why me and my friends decided to go scalping for tickets since it was Miami who was coming to play and they were ranked higher than us making it an interesting game to go to. We also decided that we weren’t going to pay more than thirty dollars for a ticket, and this was six of us trying to find 6 tickets for thirty dollars or less, which would probably seem impossible for a game of this caliber, but we still decided to try and see if we got lucky.

Before we actually went and started looking for cheap tickets, we decided to try and get some free food too. So we found a tail gate at the international student center and ate hotdogs and hamburgers there. Then at about 2:00 pm we started walking around in the rain trying to get people to sell us their tickets. We got many different responses from the many different people we encountered selling tickets. Some of them even cursed at us when we told them how much we were willing to pay for the tickets they were selling. Then we also got some sarcastic responses, which included “good luck”, with a chuckle added in. By this point we were soaked from all the day, but still had not found any tickets and there was only an hour left before the game.

Before we continued on our search for tickets we decided to take a break and have some fun by participating in some of the activities going on outside the stadium and win some free stuff at the same time. So we did the field goal challenge from state farm, won a foam finger which says VT on it. Then we signed up for something which I don’t even remember and got a free VT shirt out of it. So even if we didn’t get to go to the game, our trip around the stadium in the rain was successful as we had won some free stuff.

After having some fun with the random games outside, we continued our search for ticket and we had about half an hour left, almost time to give up and go back to our dorms. We started walking towards our dorms when we walked into these two girls who were selling their tickets for twenty dollars each and they had six tickets, exactly the amount we needed. At this point we are going crazy and buy the tickets. This is when we realize that we are soaked and would freeze to death if we went to the game soaked. This is when the mad dash back to the dorm began.

We met back in front of the stadium at 3:15 and were able to get into the stadium just in time to see the teams take the field. Then began our search for our seats, which was another adventure, as we had no idea where the seats were. Well eventually we found our seats, and started watching the game being out of breath from all the running.

The rains were pouring down now, and we were winning which made it easier to bare the cold and rain for almost 5 hours now. We decided to stay the whole time since we actually paid for the game tickets. By this time we were soaked, and could not feel anything, and there was still another quarter of football to go. By this point we were so cold that we couldn’t feel cold anymore. I am going to guess that hyperthermia was setting in, but we were enjoying ourselves and yelling our guts out in the process.

The game was over and we had officially turned into icicles, and I could barely walk down the stairs after the game since everything hurt when I tried to move. I still managed to somehow get back to my dorm and get into the shower, and unfreeze myself.

After this I went to my friend’s dorm and tried ordering pizza since we were really hungry but this didn’t work out since we would have to wait about two hours, so we just went to DX. After eating we went to a party and had a lot of fun there, since we had just won.

I got back to my dorm at about 2 am and then played some madden with my friends in the dorm. We were playing NCAA football and he played as Miami and I played as V Tech. The game ended with me winning and this was a suitable ending to this rainy day.

Long Week

This week was a very interesting week. It started at 7 am Monday morning with my alarm going off. This would signify the start of my long week of classes and tests. I only got four hours of sleep that night as I was out till 2 am the night before. I felt really exhausted when I woke up and did not feel like sitting through another boring engineering lecture in which you learn nothing, and then get homework on the stuff that you haven’t learned yet, and that was only that start of my long Monday which consisted of four classes of which two were math classes. This was going to be a fun day.

I barely got through Monday by being patient and almost sleeping through some of my classes, and then came Tuesday, when I had to go take my calculus test at the math emporium. This process took me about three hours. The worst part about this was that by the time I got back all the dining halls were closed, so I had to go eat at DX. This didn’t help since I was really hungry and needed more food. Luckily I had food in my room and that’s how I got through dinner and there was still homework left to do. That was only Tuesday, with still three more days of classes remaining, and another test to take; I knew this was going to be a long week.

Then came Wednesday, and this was another long day, with four classes, which again included two math classes. This was when I started wishing that the weekend would get here as soon as possible, but somehow I knew that would just make it seem even longer before it actually got here. So the day went by with me going to class and then coming back to my dorm and doing homework since there was nothing else to do. Later that I night I hung out with my friends playing pool at Squires. This was the highlight of my day, which speaks to how boring my day was.

Then came my easy days of the week, with only three classes in two days, I was really looking forward to having nothing to do once I got out of class, and not having to do any homework since all of it would be due next week. I also donated blood in between the two classes I had, this was a good break from all the work. I spent about two hours going through all the tests and screenings, before I could actually give blood. Then it took about five minutes to actually donate blood, but it was worth the wait since I got free food after I was done donating, and I would do anything for free food.

Then on Friday I just had one class and could sleep in since it wasn’t till 1:30. So after class I went to Christiansburg with my friends and hung out there for the rest of the day. This gave me time to get a break from school and going anything, even playing basketball, which I do like at least five times a week. When I got back I just went to sleep since it was one in the morning and I was really tired.

The next day I woke up to people yelling and music blasting, and that when I realized that I didn’t have a ticket to the football game. So I spent the day in my room watching the amazing football game, which had an awesome ending. The whole game I would hear the crowd from the stadium and then I would see the play on TV, and with every cheer from the crowd I knew that something good happened but wouldn’t actually know what happened till seven seconds later since there was a delay in the game broadcast. This kept the suspense somewhat up as I wouldn’t know if the cheers from the stadium were from Nebraska fans or from Tech fans. This was somewhat of an awesome experience since it was the first time I actually didn’t go to a game that I could hear from the outside.

Later that night I spent my time at a birthday party for one of my friends from high school. This was a lot of fun since I got to catch up with people that I had not seen in a year or two but was good friends with while they were attending high school with me. I returned home at about two in the morning but I wasn’t sleepy, so I spent my time walking around campus watching all the drunken people getting back home after their adventurous nights, and some of them even took the time to entertain me with their stories from the party they had just attended. This was especially fun as most of them would not even remember me the next day, and talking to me.

Finally came Sunday, I spent most of the day doing homework and typing this blog post. This was really annoying as I could not be out enjoying myself and watching football. hopefully once I’m done writing this blog post, I can enjoy the rest of my day, by either playing some basketball or watching some football like I planned on doing when my day began, but somehow I ended up typing this.

Are You Ready for Some Football!!

I woke up Saturday morning to the noise of cars strolling down the street, and people to excited for it to be any other regular Saturday. Then I realized that it was game day, and I was the one with no ticket to the game. The thing I didn’t know was that, there was a surprise awaiting me when I got out of bed to find my roommate still at his desk doing homework. That was just the beginning of what would be a wonderful and a very exciting day.

My roommate, James, who had a ticket to the game, was busy doing his Linear Algebra practice test, so I decided to ask him if why he wasn’t at the game. This is when I found out that I would have an opportunity to go to my first Virginia Tech game, and it happened to be the first home game of the season. My roommate had a test the next day, and therefore he wasn’t going to the game and offered me his ticket to the game. Me being really excited about the offer, I accepted at once, and then jumped out of my bed with only an hour before the game.

I ran down my hall to the bathroom and into the shower, and probably took the shortest shower since I have arrived at V Tech. I came back to my room and changed my clothes, and almost ran out of the room without brushing the teeth. It was almost one o’clock and I had had nothing to eat, but there was no time for me to go get food and get to the game in time. So I decided to grab a bag of chips and a bottle of water on my way to the game.

I got to the game and found out that you were not allowed to take in food or drinks, and therefore I was told to throw the food away and that when I knew that this was going to be a long day. I got into the huge stadium to the crowd going wild even before the game had started. I was starving and the food in the concession stands was really expensive. I decided to find where my friends so I could sit with them and enjoy the game. This turned out to be another grueling task as the stadium was packed and for some reason my friends were not answering their phones. So I basically had to guess where they were sitting, and I fortunately got a break for the first time the whole day.

So the game began and I was sitting next to all my friends who were at the game, still starving and really thirsty. The game started really slow and both teams weren’t doing much, and this made me even hungrier since I wasn’t really paying attention to the game. This is when I decided to make paper airplanes out of the booklets that were handed to us as we walked into the stadium. That was a fun activity while the teams were still getting used to each other, and no one was scoring yet. The air currents were perfect for the planes to go a long way, especially the ones that glide in the air. One of these almost made it to the field as there was a perfect air current that hit it as I let it fly.

The game got really exciting after this as Tech started scoring in bunches, and soon it turned into a blow out, and the paper airplane activity started again with many other people joining into the fun. The game was over and tech won by 42 points, that how much of a blow out it was, but it was worth going to as I really enjoyed myself.

After the game was over, my friends and I decided to go to get food from West End, and it was the most delicious meal I had in a long time, mostly because it we had won the game. After that I went to one of my friends’ birthday party, and this was a lot of fun and I was there till 3 in the morning. We played a lot of games and there was some drinking too, but the point was that it was a fun day and it was a good ending to the game with the party and everyone being in a good mood after the huge win over Marshall.

I cannot wait for the next few home games and hope to go to those and have the same amount of fun I did during our first game, but without all the rushing and turmoil.

A Week of College Life

I arrived at Virginia Tech to a long line of cars; I remember the day perfectly, like it just yesterday. A bright sunny day, with tons of people everywhere, and students just like me trying to move in. some people might describe this as chaos, but to me this meant freedom. Freedom from home, from parents, and from a restricted life with a schedule of everything I had to do. It meant that I no longer had to follow the tedious routine, of waking up when the sun was still on the horizon and having to ride the bus to school to find the different races of people divided into their little groups all along the narrow halls of the school. Then the classes began and it was the same teachers every single day and you sat in the same seat every day since teachers had assigned seating. Once school was done I would go to practice which would end with me lying on the track, exhausted and gasping for air, trying to capture every ounce that I can. Then I would get home to see my mom cooking and my sister coming to the door to annoy me, but that’s another story I won’t get into right now. Then I would get into the shower and enjoy my nice cold shower only to get out and find myself doing my tedious homework which would take up to one am in the morning. And so it would go, five days a week, seven months a year. This would all be gone the moment I stepped onto the campus of Virginia Tech. I was something that I was really looking forward to.

So getting back to my story, I arrived here to find a lot of new faces, and many different races. The new races part was not a new experience since my high school was a very diverse place, but seeing all these new faces was a little weird since I was used to seeing the same faces every day. Even though two of my friends were attending Virginia Tech and I knew people who were attending here from classes before mine, I still missed my friends. Those same faces now felt about 256 miles away, since most of them are attending school in Maryland. Suddenly I felt a sudden rush of sadness, I don’t know why I was feeling this way but it was happening and there was nothing I could do about it. Even though I really wanted to come here and get away from all those same faces that I saw every day, a part of me wished that I could do back and not have to go through the same process of finding and getting to know more new people in order to complete my friend circle again, like when I moved here from India.

The first day went by with me hanging out with my friends from high school and the new people they had met since they had been here a few days before I arrived, but that first night was a totally different story. I came into my dorm and there were people everywhere. I met a whole bunch of new people and they happened to be really friendly and I made a few new friends that first night here. This made me feel a little better and miss my friends from high school a little less, but this didn’t stop me from speaking to half of them that night.

The next few days was a lot of fun for me, since it was the weekend and there were many activities all around campus, I found myself going to most of them, not to meet new people, but to get free food. This didn’t stop me from socializing and meeting new people. I met people from all different places and I did all this while enjoying the delicious pizza in my mouth. These events helped me settle in and fell a little less home sick.

And then it was Monday. First day of classes and then came another anxiety attack, but this time it wasn’t that I was sad, but it was because I was nervous for all my new classes and I didn’t know what to expect from them. All these fears were erased by my first class of the day, which was Engineering Exploration, where we did basically nothing at all, since it was the first day of class. The whole class went by in a matter of minutes for me since I was enjoying not doing anything, but in fact the class was fifty minutes long. Then came the long five hour break, which was a very new idea for me since there were no breaks between classes in high school. I spent my break eating the delicious food here at Virginia Tech. I stuffed myself till I couldn’t stuff anymore, I was eating like I had never eaten before, it was like there was no tomorrow. I couldn’t tell if I was eating so much due to nervousness or deliciousness. All I knew was that I was eating.

The next few days were pretty exciting since I went through all my classes and my schedule got easier as the week went along. I figured my way around campus, even though I don’t know where half the stuff is yet. Walking from class to class felt like it took forever, since in high school it only took a mere two minutes to walk to class, but here it was like an average of eight minutes.

The week went by pretty fast and before I knew it was the weekend and I had enjoyed myself and had almost forgotten about my friends that I had left behind in Maryland. When I eventually got the time to sit back and look back at my whole week I realized that this was going to become another one of my cycles or routines. But in this case it would be different since I was actually having fun while I was in this routine of mine and this made me feel very eager for the weeks of school remaining before I could return home to see my parents and all my friends who I still miss dearly.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

When you look at Jacob Dickinson, you don’t see a photographer, but in fact that’s exactly what he loves to do. He might not look like the artist type, but Jacob loves his art and along with that he also likes playing basketball. These two activities really define the type of person Jacob is, as there is only an instant to really capture the moment in both these activities. Basketball is a game of seconds, if you miss your opportunity there might not be another chance to get it back just like in photography. Speaking of peculiar interests, Jacob’s favorite class is Women’s Literature. He says that the class is interesting and that’s why he took it, but I believe there are other motives behind taking this class.

Jacob hails from Fredericksburg, VA but he has been around everywhere, from Orlando to New York. Even though he didn’t stay in these places for long periods of time, one of his favorite memories comes from when he was a kid around three years old. It was the first day of preschool and he was afraid to go to school, so he hid under his blanket the whole way, but once he got there his view of preschool totally changed when his eyes fell upon the amazing play space, “the best he had seen”, in his opinion. Jacob has changed from that shy scared boy to the outgoing and remarkable person he is today. He is no longer than boy who hid under his blanket afraid to face the world. He has followed in his father’s footsteps and come to Virginia Tech, where he plans on majoring in civil or mechanical engineering. Jacob says that he came to Tech because his dad came here but we all know that he came here because it was the best school out of the four that he applied to, these include VCU, Old dominion and George Mason. I mean after all he says that, getting into Virginia Tech was the greatest accomplishment of his life and that he had been looking forward to this day for the longest time.

Well that’s enough about school, let’s talk about some football, I mean who doesn’t like football, and Jacob is no exception to this fact. Football is Jacob’s favorite sport, and he plans on attending many of the games here at Tech. Along with watching football Jacob also loves to play football, not literally, but as in video games. His favorite video games are madden, college football, and many other sports games. This part of the blog is for all the females who might be interested in Jacob. Any of these things would give you a fighting chance with Jacob. As of now Jacob resides in West AJ. Bring him some Banana Laffy Taffy’s and he is all yours. Planning on going to the movies, I suggest you stay in and watch some Step Brother, as that is Jacob’s favorite movie, and that would surely you on his good side. Well that should get you started on the right path, I’m pretty sure you guys can do the rest; it shouldn’t be too hard since he does like Women’s Literature.

If you haven’t figured by now Jacob is a very humorous person. Not only is his favorite movie Step Brothers, but he also loves the Office and watches is regularly. What better way to take a break from the rigor of his courses than to blow some steam off by watching some funny television.

On a much more personal note, Jacob is an only child, but this comes with its perks. He got everything he wanted when he was a kid, but this came with a valuable lesson, which was that not all things come that easily, and he is putting this to use now with his education and made him work harder in the process to achieve his goals. James’s middle name is Lee, which I thought was a really cool middle name especially since he is white and Lee is a predominantly Chinese name. When it comes to music Jacob likes hip hop and rock, and this favorite artists/bands are Mos Def and Shins respectively. And last but not the least, the most interesting fact of all in my mind at least is that Jacob is double jointed in his arms and thumb, which is really cool.

Being an only child has made Jacob very close to his parents and he draws his inspiration from his parents, in everything he does that will have an impact on his future, he always goes back to his roots and keeps trucking on, through all the obstacles, towards his future. His inspiration for art comes from the world around him. Jacob says that “nature is such a beautiful thing and trying to replicate it is inspiration in itself.

Ralph J. Smith, an electrical engineer at Stanford, once said that, “Engineering is the professional art of applying science to the optimum conversion of natural resources to the benefit of man.” This quote describes perfectly the type of engineer Jacob plans on becoming. His love for the Sciences had been prominent since his high school days, as his favorite class at Chancellor High school was Physics. As for the professional art part of that statement; we already know that Jacob is an amazing artist, and should have no problem connecting what he learns from his art to his future, which is engineering.

Even after being so talented and such an amazing person, Jacob manages to blend in with the rest of us and go on with his daily routine. When asked what his pet peeves were, Jacob said that he had none, and this goes to show the wonderful person he is, and how he accepts everything around him as it is, and takes the best out of everyone he meets. This attitude and behavior towards people around him is the reason why Jacob Dickinson will be successful at whatever he puts his mind to.