What is Quad Blogger?

There is a strange new Cornell Blog out there called the Quad Blogger. It is obviously part of the Chronicle since it is linked from there, but I don’t get the point of it. First reading the blog made me very confused, I had no idea what the conversation was about, but it actually made sense once I found what the IES Cephalonia delegation was. The best explanation of what the Quad Blogger is is on the about page:

QB is a “We” thing. QB is not an administrative amanuensis…

Call these liberties or limitations, one thing about Quad Blogger holds: Wherever Cornell-related news may be found, there will you find QB.

Sometimes. Not all the all the time. QB may not be here every day – but often enough, when campus actions, events or people provoke a little more than the standard news treatment. For QB is all-seeing and all-knowing.

Just not all the time.

It looks likes QB is just a fun toy for the Chronicle Staff, but I can’t be sure. The Chronicle as been pretty interested in blogs such as with the Cornell Student Blog Roundup last year and a little blurb from Elliot Back last month. It’s cool that they are trying get into blogging, but I wonder what they are really planning with this site.

And So It Begins

 My new blog is up and I’ve already made a couple of posts.  You can find it on the Life on the Hill page.  Also, you now know what I look like and what my name is lucky you!

And in other news, I started playing guitar hero and no, I am not obsessed with it!  …Okay, well maybe a little.

On Hiatus

Just a quick blerb: I got into the Cornell Student Blogging Project! This means that this blog will be neglected and will degrade, but I will still have random fun stuff that I will post every now and then. I knew I got in for a while now but today the new blog went up and have been fooling around with images, themes, ect. I will release the link once it launches in about late August or so. (If you are really tricky you could guess what my URL is, it isn’t surprising hah).

In other news, I made a cool lego creation during my break. I also put up little video of it on Google Video. It was my first time uploading a video for public viewing and it was rather easy but I was disappointed by the poor video quality. I will post something more about it later.

Looking Back

The second semester is now over and it has almost been a year since I came to Cornell University last summer. A lot has happened, so I felt like sharing some random thoughts I have about my experiences so far. Afterwards, I was surprised how much I could write about Cornell; I could have written a long post on every one of my random thoughts. Read on if you dare, I warn you it is very long.

Donlon Spring 2007 Hike in Treman Park

I get a lot of emails at Cornell that I hardly ever bother to read. There are a lot of cool events going on all the time, but I very rarely ever go to one. But for this event someone personally asked me to go. I could not think of anything better to do that day other than work so I thought “Why not?” and decided to go.

The hike was in Robert H. Treman State Park, which is right near the better known Buttermilk Falls. It was a beautiful Hike and although I took some pictures that you can see in my Treman Park Photo Set, I couldn’t capture the scene very well. The sounds, the sunlight, the wind, and the atmosphere are all too difficult to describe, one has to actually experience it to properly understand. If you are curious about the area I suggest you also look at other people’s pictures of it on Flickr.

The Hike was for only my dorm, Mary Donlon, and best of all completely free. There were about fifteen people that went, most of who I did not know. After the Hike we had a nice barbecue (free of course) and hung out. I realized that there are a lot of cool and interesting people in my dorm that I haven’t even met; Mary Donlon does house near 500 students, it’s near impossible to know everyone. I really should have gone a trip like this earlier in the school year, but oh well, I still have plenty of time left in my college career to meet new people.

Snow Came

The snow did come. I woke up to about one foot of snow and the snow would continue for 10 more hours. Getting to class wasn’t actually that difficult; main paths were mostly cleared and the snow made it feel warmer than single digit temperatures. This was this first day I have had to wear my boots so far at Cornell; if I hadn’t, my feet would have gotten very wet and then frozen off. A surprisingly large number of people skied to class and managed it well.

My classes in the morning were at about 80% the usual attendance and things were going according to schedule when at 12:15 I was walking through Duffield and heard that the University was going to close soon. This gave me an excellent opportunity to go and take lots of pictures. I have them up on my flickr account and I plan to take more today. Overall, I was little affected by the snow. Roads and Paths were well maintained and the large dinning halls stayed open. Read more about it on the Chronicle Online. A fellow freshman Matt Hintsa also has some good photos of the snow yesterday.

Snow is Coming

Finaly looks like the first snow storm is on its way. I got an email through Cornell about the coming storm titled, “City of Ithaca Snow Emergency”

“In anticipation of a heavy snowfall as predicted by the National Weather Service, Mayor Carolyn K. Peterson declared a snow emergency effective 5:00 pm on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 that will remain in effect until further notice.”

According to National Weather Service, tonight there will be 8-12 inches of snow, tomorrow there will be 12-16 inches, and on Wednesday, 4-6. All with temp lows in the single digits. It looks like I am in for a lot of fun and torment especially since tomorrow I have 6 classes to attend. I will post updates later, but until then you can enjoy the view from my room right now.

First day of classes, first day of woes

Today I had my first day of spring semester classes at Cornell.  Things didn’t go as nicely as I wanted to, but everything worked out fine in the end.  So I woke up early, ready and rearing to go.  Took a shower, eat breakfast, and had plenty of time to spare.  My first class of the day was physics and I was all excited to go to my first ever physics course at Cornell.  I was sitting in the classroom for a while until I realized that I was in the wrong room. 

I watch too much anime

Anime is an amazing type of media. It is hard to generalize; there are thousands of unique series that can’t be compared to any other and shows range from Sci-Fi space operas to absurdest comedies and school life romances. Of course there are a lot of bland shows that are just run of the mill or worse, but if you dig deep enough you can discover a treasure trove of great shows. To find good anime to watch, I like to surf at AnimeNfo, which has a lot of great user reviews on anime. Wikipedia has some good articles on on anime shows. Also, it is fun to aimlessly browse random forums, read what other people think, and get into all of the anime jargon.

Yay! Snow

Today it snowed at Cornell. Yay! Snow. Or at least I hope so. Today it was really just flurries and then turned into sleet. At times when it was windy, your face could sting. Any accumulation was gone in a couple hours, but it was fun while it lasted.

My fellow freshman and I agree that snow is cool, at least for now. Many think that we will all end up hating snow, but I hope not. I enjoy building giant snow structures, and snow actually makes me feel warmer in the winter; it is good insulation. I don’t want to end up all old and cranky, blaming the snow for all of my problems. “What? Snow? Now I have to be slightly cold. Damn the world!” I will admit though that snow causes huge problems for people with long commutes, but I personally will not be adversely affected much by snow. Hopefully I won’t have to take back what I just said.