UH OH...(I think I Crapped my Pants)

1. A convicted murderer and rapist who had escaped from an Oklahoma prison was captured last weekend on the A&M campus. He had been hiding out on one of the upper floors of an academic building which stands right in the middle of campus. The news though didn't make the front page of The Batallion, the school newspaper here at Texas A&M. One can only suppose that not making a big, hairy deal of the situation is in the best interests of the campus as a whole and that maybe sensationalism serves no great purpose, but perhaps the story should have gotten more attention.

I'll give The Batallion the benefit of the doubt because of some of the other pressing issues on campus, such as international students getting assaulted or discriminated against in the popular Northgate area (a strip of bars directly across from campus). A graduate student from India was assaulted by four A&M students. Two other incidents, that I can think of, have occurred in the past several months as well.

2. Hiding out amongst forty-thousand some-odd students is fairly easy.

I've already heard of two other instances of students living out of a non-residential building on campus. I'm not sure if these students were doing this out of spite or for the purpose of not paying rent. One involved an undergraduate who supposedly was sleeping at the MSC (the student center here) and showering at the rec center. The other involved a physics student who supposedly was living out of the physics building. But, those stories are all hearsay, I suppose.

3. Pi-Curious: A pun, a play on words, possibly meaning an intense desire to have an irrational amount of sexual relations with an irrational number of members belonging to any set of gender/sexual orientations; it could also refer to an intimate understanding of the number PI or engaging in passioned study of the number PI.

Matt, a fellow physics grad, came into class earlier this week with the word written on his hand (he claims it's the first original thought he's ever had). The community of physics grads, writ large, have been in an uproar ever since over it's meaning. The above is what I'm sticking with though.

4. Shotgunning Keystone Light: A fine Kappa Sigma tradition dating back to 1400.

I've come to this conclusion largely based on the following facts:

a. We met some Kappa Sigs, randomly, on a beach while on spring break in Destin, FL. We had noticed earlier in the day that they were shotgunning Keystone Light. We joined them and shotgunned three out of spite or maybe out of brotherhood -- I'm not certain, the memory is hazy at best.

b. We shotgunned a lot of Keystones my senior year. Although the memory of that is not very clear either, I have the digital video evidence to prove it.

c. "Tweeder drank beer, because, well, Tweeder drinks beer."

d. I have a student who facebook-ed me. She's dating a Kappa Sig here at A&M, and I noticed in her Facebook photo album that she is indeed shotgunning a Keystone Light at a Kappa Sig party of some sort.

And thus, the status of this fine tradition is confirmed.

5. Karaoke Night: a fine physics graduate student tradition dating back to three weeks ago.

After the first quantum mechanics exam (which happened one week after our first math methods exam), several of us went to Fitzwilly's to celebrate not dying (I suppose). Peter, Matt, and I stayed late into the night to sing karaoke to a rather empty bar audience. News of the hilarity spurred much interest among the other grad students, and now karaoke has become a much anticipated weekly event.

This past Tuesday, two of the Chinese international students came with us. They didn't sing, but the fact that they came out was wonderful.

My song selections from the most recent karaoke night:

Domino -- Van Morrison
Wheel in the Sky -- Journey

I sound awful when I sing, just awful. No karaoke song should ever go past two minutes, because that's precisely when you become extremely self-conscious about how bad you sound.