Useless Ramblings

Hey Everyone!

Well, it's a Saturday night and I'm enjoying the quiet comfort of the cold computer room in the library. (Please sense sarcasm.) We had 32 hours of lecture this week and I fell a little behind so I'm trying to catch up on all of my lectures by the end of this weekend. Anyway, I thought I'd take a break to write about the little things going on in my life besides school work.

1) It's been raining A LOT lately. It rains all of the time. And when it stops, I can't get too excited because I know it'll just start up again in 20 minutes or so. Normally, this wouldn't bother me because I love when it rains. But, lately, the annoying rain is keeping me up at night by falling on my face. I live on the top floor of my apartment building. The only things separating me from the monsoon every night are the wood planks on the ceiling, some insulation (I think?), and a piece of tin. Have you ever lived under a tin roof and had it rain constantly? The rain is LOUD. Sometimes it's so loud that it keeps me up at night. But, most of the time, I just play a TV show or a movie on my laptop to drown out the noise as I fall asleep. The real problem lately is that there seems to be a vulnerable spot in the tin roof where cold rain water can seep through the tin, insulation, wood, and on to my face. My bed is RIGHT beneath this leak and I can't move it because I don't have any outlets on the other side of my room. It's just a little annoying problem that can be easily taken care of. It's really just a matter of me getting a hold of the landlord's daughter to let her know so she can take care of it. I just find the whole situation (tin roof, rain water falling on my head and my bed, etc.) humorous.

2) This week, the Subway on campus started serving personal pizzas and soups! I am sooo unbelievably happy about this. (Lame, I know, that I find such joy in these little things.) I love, love, love soup and I always complained (to myself) and wondered why the Subway here didn't serve soup like the Subways in the U.S. Well, now they serve soup and I'm really happy about it. :) I had the tomato garden vegetable with rotini soup today and it was REALLY good. And it's actually pretty healthy. They give you a pretty generous serving and it only has 100 calories, 0.5 g of fat, 3 g of protein, and 20 g of carbs. Though, it does have a lot of sodium with a whopping 900 mg. I also had half of one of the personal pizzas. The pizza comes pre-made with cheese and you just add whatever toppings you want. It was actually pretty good and light yet filling. Even though the pizza is small, it's deep dish. Anyway, I'm glad the Subway here added these items because I was getting a little sick of eating sandwiches every day. So, *YaY* for Ross for this small improvement! It kind of made my day. :)

3) This was included in our Daily Announcements e-mail on Friday:

Body Tracker
We have a bimonthly activity called BODY TRACKER where we do a weigh in (including BMI, metabolic age, etc...), blood pressure check, hip/waist measurements and caliper determinations of body fat. We do this for your OWN KNOWLEDGE and is a greatly popular activity. On MONDAY, JANUARY 19TH (this coming Monday), members of the Wellness Club will be set up outside the Annex at 12:00 as a special Intro to Body Tracker for the first semesters. We want to get as many of the new students excited about this as possible. Our first session for the general student body will be on the 29th and 30th of January (Thursday and Friday). There will be more details on that closer to the day.

Fitness Test/Purple Turtle
Then, as a launch of body tracker for the whole campus, we will have a special activity next SATURDAY (JANUARY 24TH). This will be our first year trying this out, and we hope that you will all come and participate. Starting at 11am we will be running a fitness test that we will repeat again at the end of the semester so that people can set goals for themselves to achieve over the semester. We will also have a van making trips back and forth to PURPLE TURTLE BEACH as a relaxing escape from the first 2 weeks of studying. The Fitness Test will stop at 2 (unless we have lots of people still showing up) and the transport will be going back and forth until about 5pm. The whole thing is FREE and should be great fun!

I've had my eye on this Body Tracker thing for a while now. I've always wanted to do it but never really found the courage to come face to face with my body measurements - especially if another stranger is also coming face to face with my body measurements. But, I think I may participate this semester. I would really like to employ some sort of physical activity regiment this semester. I mean, I've never even stepped foot in the gym in the whole year that I've been here. I'd like to change that this semester. However, my track record with gyms is not very good so while I will TRY to get to that gym on a regular basis, I can't make any promises. I'm hoping I can con Gabe into participating in this Body Tracker program with me. That way, he can kick my butt all the way to the gym and to these weigh-ins. Oy... what am I getting myself into? I guess you'll find out right along with me. :)

As for that fitness test, I think I may have to sleep on that one a little longer. I don't think I'm very fit at the moment and the e-mail was a little vague regarding what exactly goes on during this fitness test. I know that Purble Turtle Beach is a few minutes away from campus by way of car. If the fitness test involves me taking a taxi to Purble Beach, then I think I'll pass this test with flying colors. Now, if I have to RUN to Purple Turtle Beach, well, let's just say that one of those transports going back and forth will have to stop to pick up a dead Ross student off the side of the road. Once I get more details about this so called "fitness test," then I'll make a decision regarding my participation.

4) No one else except Gabe and I probably care about this but Gabe and I are anxiously awaiting to hear who will be the next offensive coordinator for the University of Miami. This topic pretty much dominates every conversation we have when we're not talking about school. We LOVE our alma mater and we especially LOVE our football team. We should be hearing the news any day now. I hope it's a good hire because a good 'Canes football team makes for a very happy Melissa. If there are any other 'Canes fans reading this blog, drop a comment! Represent! :)

PS: I still haven't recovered from the Gators winning the National Championship. Michael, my cousin and roommate whom I love dearly, is a UF alum and major Gator football fan. While I'm happy for him, I .. am .. not .. happy. The 'Canes and the Gators are rivals (in case you didn't know) and so the Gators winning the Championship has pretty much crushed my football heart. So, I would REALLY love to hear some good news regarding the future of my football team. It's all in Randy Shannon's hands (whatever that means) so I'll just have to wait and see. Just a few more days till I know if next year's team will sink or float. Please.. FLOAT!!!

Anyway, I know this post was just full of useless ramblings. But, this is what's going on in my life except being in this stupid library all of the time. I hope this post didn't bore you all to death. :) Good night!