Ze Te Katsu!

Awesome stuff happens sometimes. The title today is Japanese for "I will win!"

Yesterday in American Culture class we carved Jack o' Lanterns for Halloween. Everyone formed into groups of three or four, and emptied the pumpkin of its innards, came up with designs and completed them. After we were done, we had a contest where we voted for which pumpkin was the best.

My group decided on, and carved the Maneki Neko or "Beckoning Cat" seen in many Japanese stores. I ended up doing a lot of the fiddly bits because I had the greatest skill to bring to bear on the task.

The pumpkins were lined up, their candles ignited, and we voted by writing numbers on a sheet of paper and putting them in a bag. No one was allowed to vote for their own pumpkin, but given the less than rigorous methods of checking to make sure this was true, no one knows if everyone obeyed the rules.

In any case, there were nine pumpkins, and the voting ended up like so.

1: 0
2: 2
3: 2
4: 5
5: 5
6: 5
7: 2
8: 2
9: 0

The Professor, Jason, had abstained from voting for just such a circumstance. He had actually prevoted and kept his vote in his pocket, which gave pumpkin five the victory.

Guess which pumpkin my groups was.

Booya.

It was my team's pumpkin that was presented to the University President as a gift. How much does that rock?

I'll post a picture here of the winning pumpkin come Halloween. Look for it!

The other awesome news is that I just submitted next semester's schedule to Messiah College. I had been a little aprehensive about it, as there was a possibility that an important course I needed to graduate might not be offered in a fashion wherein I could take it and as such would have to try to wrangle together an independant study at the last second. However, it has all worked out well, very well in fact.

So well in fact, that if even my less desirable second choices are the ones I have to settle on, every weekend will be a four day weekend for me.

Yeah, that's right. Save for a two hour Phys Ed course late Monday evenings, I'll have no classes on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday come Spring.

Quite honestly, that will be an utter Godsend for a vast number of reasons.

1. I'll need the extra time for my Senior Project.
2. I'll need the extra time for setting up interviews for prospective jobs.
3. I'll need the extra time for going to places such as Baltimore to interview for the previously mentioned jobs.
4. I'll need the extra time for relaxing from the stress of the previous three reasons.

Quite simply, getting up for an 8AM class every Tuesday and Thursday isn't a pain when you don't have to get up at all on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday.

Booya.