All is quiet on the eastern front (or is it the western front?). My job is going smoothly, and there’s just enough going on to stave away ennui.
July 22nd and 23rd (along with an hour of the 24th) were spent at the Rochester Institute of Technology for their College and Careers program. It was just as much of a career exploration program as it was a RIT promotion program, but even so, the bitches made us pay. Just as expensive was the transportation, because I was unable to procure a ride. The person who originally introduced the program to me was bringing someone who had a ride, but both dropped out, so the only person who attended it with me was my girlfriend. Not that that was a problem. In fact, there are few I would have been content with taking her place on the seven hour bus ride that stretched to eight hours for random reasons. The 7:30 AM departure, for which we got up early and went to Port Authority, was awfully packed; in fact we were delayed because we picked up a surplus passenger at the Syracuse station and had to reassure his ass that he wouldn’t be stranded. The trip otherwise went by uneventfully, and even though it was cold inside the bus, my mind was distracted with the lore and illustrations of the various clans of kine. I particularly liked the clan pictures for the Malkavians and the Ravnos.
Actually, regaling you with the details of the trip itself would be too boring. Let’s end on that vampiric note and get to the good stuff. We arrived late, and missed most of the opening ceremony. In fact, we didn’t see any of the opening ceremony. In fact, we didn’t see a single damn ceremony at all, and that’s good, because I probably would have puked at the cheesiness. “RIT is good, blah blah. Go to RIT, blah blah. Anyone who’s still awake and doesn’t want me to steal your firstborn, raise your hand. Great, those hundred bundles of love should make our biology students very happy.”
Instead, we skipped the opening ceremony and realized just how hot rooms without AC can get. Every other building other than the dorms, though, had AC, and often plenty of it. We spent most of our time in the Alumni Center, where they opened up the pool tables for our use, gave us free drinks, set up gambling tables, tuned the big screen tv to sports, and gave out free tokens for the arcade games. I was almost as enamored with the student center in RIT as I was with the student center in MIT, though the center in RIT was actually much better. There were at least six pool tables, an air hockey table, three cheap themed pinball machines, a puzzle game, a decent fighting game, a sniper game, an accuracy hunting game, and a DDR machine. They know what we like. We didn’t want to camp out a pool table, but we did get a shot at the air hockey table without waiting long. I scored the most points, if you count goals on myself. The accuracy hunting game was surprisingly engaging, though obviously set in the future, as only bio-augmented animals could survive more than two shots in the head from a rifle. The DDR machine was equally entertaining, and though I was still rusty, my partner was awfully polite even when asking me to play on light for a song he wasn’t sure he could keep me alive on.
So yes, the first day was a dead day. I saw a lot of my girlfriend, saw barely anything of my roomate, and marveled at the spacious shower stalls and very cool rooms. The next day was when all four classes took place sequentially. I took computer science, information technology, software engineering, and psychology courses.
Computer science was very informative because it highlighted the differences between the different fields regarding computers. I learned about computer engineering, computer science, and information technology. I had an inkling about what information technology was, but I’ve now cemented it as a viable major for me along with computer science. We also got to watch the professor’s downloaded video of cats doing crazy things.
Information technology was fun because it was hands-on and we got to see their great facilities. We set up WinVNC (a free remote desktop program), set up shared folders, and search the building for wireless hotspots. While my partner was very cool, we also had a token annoying know-it-all. Still, it didn’t take much effort to focus less on him and more on the massive workstations that sysadmins to-be were given, and the servers that were assigned to teams so they could attack each other. Hot, in the massively-ACed room kind of way.
Software engineering actually made me fall asleep, but turned out to be very engaging. We played with Robocode, an IBM-developed program that lets you code the behavior for a robot to kill other robots, and entered all our robots in a room-wide competition. Mine, while admirable against a single opponent, quickly died in melees. The most amusing robot was the wussy, who simply ran around in a circle while other robots shot at it and often missed, making them waste their energy and perish. I picked up at least two wins, but only ended up somewhere in the middle of the rankings.
Psychology was a dead session. We were seated at Macintosh computers and allowed free reign, with orders to play around with PsychSim. Theoretically, this could have been fun, if PsychSim wasn’t dreadfully dry and boring. Instead, I checked my email and my Nationstates account and left early.
Departure was uneventful barring a dreary wait for a taxi to the bus station. The bus ride back was much less crowded, and it was at or under half capacity when we left Syracuse to go to New York. I enjoyed the dark, once she finished reading a good chunk of Harry Potter we went seat hopping. We learned from our past mistake and took a blanket from our luggage so that we wouldn’t be as cold. That and body heat did the trick. We got back an hour late again, which meant that we arrived around 1 AM to the concealed regret of my parents for having come early. Still, it was better than having to drive fourteen hours twice, no?
true, RIT’s student center was much, much better…. I think I might’ve been so impressed by MIT’s because it was the first student center i’d ever seen!
you never told me about cats going crazy things on video.. 🙁 (let’s not tell Devi about this though.. :-P)
I christen this the first threaded comment of this site. May the system live long and prosper.
But anyway…to the actual reply 😀 . Yea, I’m only holding MIT in such high regard because nice, even better memories were made there.
I was sure I mentioned it…but yea, best we keep it a secret from Devi 😛 .
I wonder if I’m only holding it in such high regard for that reason as well… 😐 I mean, that’d be bad if I got in, went, and didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.
That’s what I’m afraid of.
One more test.
I lied.
Left-leaning college state, eh? I am quite capitalizt, I fear. Our states don’t like each other much. 😀 (Oh, damn, I just discovered that my economy isn’t powerhouse anymore. Pity.) Emirates Of Zehyri Based loosely on a candy called “zephyr” which I was eating at the moment of creation.
The Ravnos dude is hot. Seriously. It made me want to play Ravnos forever, but the only time I tried I got killed in the first bloody session by my own “alllies”, so I figured I don’t have quite enough skill for it. The Malc picture was awesome as well. The Ventrue and Tremere have OK pics. Generally, I agree though- the art in the WoD books is HOT.
MIT has a bunch of stuff at the dorms, which could, possibly, explain the lack of extreme Rec Room coolness. Or, alternativly, MIT is just not cool in that department. I am glad RIT is awesome because for quite some time I was fully assuming htat I was going to go there. So, yayfor.
Didn’t close the tag, sorry. Where is a bloody edit button when ya need it?!
None in Livejournal either, so shh.
Not only is the link a greedy word hog, but it’s pointing to the default Nationstates page. Which works fine if I’ve hacked your account and already logged in. If you want to link the nation, there’s a custom-made link at the bottom of your nation’s page. Alas, not all of us can have tax-free nations.
I want to shower the Ravnos artist with love and praise. I couldn’t stop staring at that picture. Tremere was surprisingly good, and the Ventrue had a certain sleek charm about it. All in all, good stuff throughout the books. I blew through Mage and Hunter during the long Battlefield 2 load times 😛 .
Oh, MIT is cool. So cool, I’m taking an extra SAT2 just so I can qualify to apply there. But with comparatively low grades, especially in science and math, I don’t stand much of a chance. If you know anyone…please help me.
How about this? My nation has made duels legal. That is so spiffy, that even you can’t argue about it. 😀
Heh. If I could help you with this, I would. But I can’t forsee a way, so good luck to thee. Massive amounts of it.
Don’t remember much of the Hunter book- I think I don’t like Hunter in general. Not a specificly active dislike, but, IMO, Hunter lacks the extreme coolness of Mage, Vampire, etc. The Mage book was nifty though. And everytime we played we had 5 people fighting to be the Virtual Adept. 😀
I also remember an excruciatingly hot supplement cover. The entire thing was about the Tremere and the Hermes, so it showed a Hermetic mage back to back with the Tremere. The mage was old-ish and doing magy stuff, the tremere was snazzy-looking, grinning and, possibly, drinking blood out of a pretty-looking goblet/glass. And it was pretty and I can’t seem to find the scan of the picture anywhere. The cover of the Clanbook:Tremere is embarassingly unpretty. Boofor. 🙁
On the topic of hot vampire pics, the Assimite picture isn’t too bad either. Not nearly as hot as the Ravnos though.
I would have, but I’d prefer to support corporate takeovers and the like, rather than bitchslapping.
I liked the stories in Hunter, how they didn’t just known everything about their powers. All the books are good, though…
*gasp* I forgot all about the supplements! *reads*
The Assamite was badass, but for once I’m going to have to give the hotness award to a guy. In fact, the hot Malkavian, Ravnos, and Ventrue pictures were all guys…
Oh, I agree. Well, of course, as always. Although I owuld say that the Tremere picture wasquite snazzy. But, regardless, the semi-shirtless Ravnos is, ehm, breathtaking.
Anyways, i found it and it is called “blood Treachery” and there is a picture here, but it isn’t a nicely-snazzy large picture which is rather annoying, IMO.
We are libertarian. We can arm cars with machine guns. And duels are a long way from bitchslapping. Well, exept for the challenge part. But glove-throwing is fun, damn it!
You are right on the stories, although I am still in favor of vampire and mage ones. I think I got burned with too many “farm boy” protagonists in books or the like, so having 1337 magic sikillz seems a hell lot more interesting.
I am kind of sad about that actually, because I htink I have a great attraction t the entire World Of Darknes universe, but that is mostly to the politics/murder-death-slaughter aspect of it, not the gothic angst or the hippy “magic exists!” attitude. We’ll skip the fact that, if Mage was real I would so end up in the Technocrazy, or possibly, the Adepts, exept I am not 1337 enough. :D.
I need to read more 😛 .
Oh, the possibilities if I was a mage…I’d probably end up as an Entropy mage. Argh, now I wanna go reread Mage again…
Indeed. And you should start with either the Amber books by Roger Zelazny (9 Princes in Amber) or something Dragaera-related by Steven Brust. Nine Princes is actually ridiculously short and, IMO, better, since, in many ways, Brust=apprentice of Zelazny. Think “I named my eldest son after an Amber character” kind. 😀
Ehm. Oh. Yeah. There was some sort of a disscussion here.
I had a friend who was obsessed with them Enthropy/Death people. By obsessed I mean “Could spend hours explaining their philosophy”. This was the same person who explained that, whenevr he saw a person walk towrds him on the same sidewalk, he mentally prepared that they were going to throw him into the middle of traffic and was always ready to take them with him. Nice guy though, not nearly as crazy as this description seems. 😀
The Sons Of Ether are actually quite spiffy as well, but if I had a conscieous choice of hwich order to join, I would probbaly go with the Hermes. Why? because I have a theory that, if the Hermes declared war on any one single order, they could anhilate them. Can’t say the same for Adepts or Ether. But, on the other hand, Ehtr and Adepts have some coolness points due to the Tech. Hm.
I am also pissed because this disscussion inspired me to go to Borders to look at the Masquerade book. Well, all those bastards have is Dark Ages (I think I have looked through thisa dozen times already, never liked much) and Werewolf:Forsaken which was OK, exept for the entire ‘I don’t reallylike htem werewolfs” thing. Iron Shields seemed like a spiffy class though.
Also the net says that, apaprently the entire WoD thing is being completly remade- ie All the Vampires in Masquerade were anhilated, Ascension has come and the like. There are some new games out with similar topics ( I think Forsaken is one of those, I remember Werewolf: The Apocalypse), but…meh.
Yea, the whole WoD got scrapped and made “simpler” I hear. I’m surprised Borders didn’t have Vampire: The Requiem, the new version.
I think I don’t like the idea of making things like Vampire “simpler” because the complexity was exactly what made it so awesome. But, then the only “new” thing I have seen was the Forsaken which had about 5 or so werewolf types. If all other things were reduced to this…Grr.