Episode XVI: Spring

My my, spring has sprung, and what a wonderful thing it is! Coming from a land where the climate is beautiful year-round, it is particularly surprising, and enjoyable, to watch spring unfold.

It is nice to finally have green grass instead of brown; leaves and flowers instead of bare branches; the activity of birds, rabbits and squirrels instead of the hibernation of both man and beast; and most importantly, the ability to wear sandals and a t-shirt instead of boots and four layers of clothing.

It is nice to be able to drive places and not be afraid of a potential snowstorm making the road impassable. It is nice to be free of the salt and sand (used for snow control) that would get all over your car and get stuck inside your shoe. It is also nice to be able to walk around outside without being afraid that your fingers may suddenly go numb, then freeze solid, and then fall off without you even noticing.

It is also nice that the fountains here on campus are finally back in action.

Of course, another thing that comes along with spring in Kansas is monster lightning storms, which can be rather exciting, as well as tornado warnings, which can be fairly scary.

Episode XV, Continued…

Alas! And forsooth! I am sad to say that “Old Tippecanoe” did not make it to round 2 of the competition (it got beat by a guy with a superior MySpace page), but it was good fun nonetheless. Apparently a KU professor heard the song on the radio and announced it at a staff meeting, so I became a mini-celebrity for a couple of days. I also was asked to give an interview for the university newspaper. So overall, it has been a good time. Thanks to everyone who listened, and voted.

Episode XV: Radio

This is a special, four-day-early edition of the Ballade, consisting of A Special Message.

Now it is ironic that I planned on posting about the Lawrence music scene this weekend, because that regularly-scheduled post is being postponed by an update on my own personal music interests:

On The Radio

One of my all-time goals has been to have a song of mine played on FM radio, and just last week I accomplished this goal at the ripe young age of 23 (although it was sort of cheating). I have been listening to the radio program called ‘Whadyaknow?’, distributed by NPR, and a month ago they started their own version of American Idol. It is a fairly oddball kind of radio show, so I submitted a fairly oddball song of mine. Then about a week later, I was informed by someone at church that my song had been played on the show! Score!

Now the reason that this post is early is because you all have a small window of opportunity to listen to my song, vote for it via email, and who knows, maybe it will make it to the final round? I hope that the deadline has not yet passed, but I am quite sure that voting will be over by Friday at the latest.

You can listen to the MP3 by clicking here (it should work now, just click on the box: whadyaknow). Then you can vote for the song by emailing whadyaknow@wpr.org and voting for me: Adam Norris, #3- Old Tippecanoe. How simple! In fact, you don’t even have to listen to the song, if you wish.

I will not make the boast that my song was the best, but I will say that to my unbiased ears, I won on the applause-ometer front. If you want to listen to the whole show, I think it is still on the website at notmuch.com.

Now sure, it would be great fun to go to the final round- if I win I get flown to the studio and get to play live- but the real reward has already been registered: my song has been played on national radio! Even if it was kind of cheating.

If for any reason the MP3 link doesn't work, and you actually want to hear the song, shoot me an email at razjericho@yahoo.com and I will send it pronto.

Episode XIV: Attending Class

Today is an appropriate day to post about my graduate school classes, as I am just about to start my third and final lab rotation. My current lab, in which I deal with microscopic worms, has made such an impression on me that the worms have made appearances in my dreams, wriggling around on their Petri dishes.

However, this post is not about my lab, but about my classes.

Overall, my classes have been very good. The subjects are interesting, the material is demanding, and the teachers (with one or two exceptions) are solid. The first semester I took three classes plus a seminar, and this semester I have two classes plus seminar. Our seminar is basically a weekly meeting where all the students and faculty consume free cookies and coffee while listening to a guest lecture.

The above picture is Haworth Hall, where all of my classes are held. The building is fairly unspectacular architecturally speaking, but one nice feature that you can see on the left is a glass walkway that connects our building with the pharmacy/physics/chemistry building, which in turn is right next to the nearest food court. This means that on a cold, snowy day, one can walk all the way to lunch without hardly stepping outside.

Below is a picture of the classroom where my best classes occur. Not only is the class size small, just 10-15 students each, but also it is taught cooperatively, with each professor only teaching subjects in which he or she is an expert.

Another larger class that I am taking this semester is taught by the assistant dean, who is smart, and a fairly good teacher, but very dry. Listen to the clip below and see if you can guess what ‘celebrity’ he reminds me of.

Finally, I have returned to my pattern of taking at least one purely fun class per semester. This semester it is a martial art called Ki Aikido, which is apparently similar to Judo. The instructor claims that George Lucas modeled Yoda’s character from Star Wars after an elderly Aikido master. I have yet to learn anything spectacular or Yoda-like yet, but I am having fun anyway.

Two final notes

First, congratulations to the KU basketball team, who won their final game of the season, guaranteeing them the Big 12 championship. This also marks the end of my season ticket schedule, but I have priority to enter a lottery to be allowed to purchase playoff tickets for at least $150 a pop!

Second, I would like to tell you about my most recent culinary challenge. After hearing that the ‘average college student’ orders one pizza per week, I realized that I was way below average. I therefore decided to eat pizza at least once, every day for a week. This was not as easy as it first seemed. However, I did set a personal record on one of those days by eating 19 slices in one meal (they were fairly small).