introducing...

the next UVA student blogger! It was quite tough to choose amongst all the applicants, and I was surprised by the large amount of apps I got. In the end, I went for diversity of experience and the the vision that the applicant had for the blog. I'll keep her identity secret until she chooses to reveal it, but our mystery new person is a second year in the College of Arts and Sciences.

I know, real illuminating eh? I'll still pop in from time to time to chime in, you haven't seen the last of me!

a miasma of conversations...

I've just spent the past 10 days wrapping up three midterms, one case, 10 interviews, and a plethora of company events. At this point, I will happily, and I do mean happily, shake anyone who says that fourth year is easy. :D

Nah, it's alright. Just a lot to do. I'm in my house for six hours a day -- to sleep. This is what I get for throwing myself into ten billion things. Note to the wise: don't have three executive positions AND a job through the school your fourth year. That kind of kills you slightly when you're interviewing for tons of jobs. Thankfully, one position ended today and one more will end in a month. (I'm having a slight problem letting go though, I feel all my organizations are my babies! :D)

This weekend's UVA parent's weekend -- aka traffic is more horrendous than usual because of all the parents coming into town. Student organizations usually put forth a ton of effort this weekend and have many cultural showcases. I participated in Culturefest this year, a showcase in which all the minority groups on Grounds come together to perform. I... was in the highly embarrassing dances that the Taiwanese Student Association put on, almost, just almost too embarrassed to perform. For those of you from Taiwan, we danced to 青春不留白 and 你是我的花朵. Yeah...

Tomorrow my peer mentoring org (PAFN) is holding a kickball tournament for two families in the organization, time to work off some calories!

honor code? what bloody honor?

But before the delightful weekend I laid out below... I endured a personal violation of the honor code that was very distressing for me. Upon concluding all my classes for the day, I swung by my mailbox to pick up my tax textbook. My mailbox? Was empty. Absolutely blippin' empty.

Someone had stolen my textbook.



I was beyond furious, it was close to $200! I'd put it in my mailbox because I hadn't wanted to lug it around Grounds all day when I only needed it in the morning. After my high faith in the honor system, I was appalled that someone had stolen my book.

But alright, to be fair it might not have been a UVA student. We do have lots of strangers walking through the buildings, part of the curse of having an open school campus. But still, I was very upset and stalked through the hallways for a bit. The only consolation I have? To the thief who stole my book, guess what, you can't sell it to the bookstore for money. My tax class changes textbooks every year. Hah.

fall breakin' it!

The last weekend and first half of this week was UVA's Reading Days, or termed Fall Break by students. I find it rare actually that anyone ever actually spends the whole time studying, most people go home instead. *shrug*

I love having a car this year, because I took two friends up to DC for three days. Before we got there though, we went to the Virginia State Fair first (anyone go there?). It was actually the first time I'd been to a state fair, so I was pretty excited. Can we say cheddar nuggets anyone? Possibly my favorite food there. The fair was huge, apart from walking around and going on rides, we also watched pig racing and a demolition derby. Both of those were firsts for me, and really exciting! Especially in the demolition derby, it dragged on where one small, zippy car was trying to ram a big truck. There were many, many close calls until the truck finally t-boned, then rammed the small car's engine. (And then he promptly committed suicide by running the front of his car into the small one... of which I still don't understand).

Pig racing was hilarious (and I was ridiculously excited for it). Pigs are surprisingly fast! Although the the grossly overweight Oriental pigs that came at the end were... as expected, beyond slow.

I hadn't expected to have such a good time at the state fair, it almost makes me sad that I'd like to head to a big city like New York after graduation. Meh well, maybe I'll end up with a job in NOVA and be able to go to events like these all the time.

i have a bone to pick with uva.

Or rather, the systems that we switched to this semester. But more on that in a few moments, I have an Honor Loan applicant waiting for me.

As I was saying, I have a bone to pick with UVA (for once). Granted, it's no one's fault and there's always kinks with a new system, blahblahblah, but seriously, I'm really highly irritated with the new Student Integrated Systems that the entire school switched over to this year.

Not only is it confusing to use (students say I hate SIS instead of I hate ISIS now), but it's also caused massive troubles with financial aid. More than half the applicants I have (and my office hours are usually full every day, it's slightly ridiculous) stem from financial aid being delayed thanks to SIS acting up on student accounts. Seriously, I'd hate for it to be a month into school and still not have my financial aid because our computer systems can't get their act together.

That, and several other stories of annoyance and frustration is a bone that I've got to pick with UVa.