I have no poetry skills so I won’t even attempt to write this post as some sort of poem, as the title would suggest.  However, I will make every attempt to make this post enjoyable to read, maybe even include some jest.

If you go to Columbia or are one of the chosen few who already know what the word Mudd means, then the rest of the post is perhaps useless for you.  It might be interesting, but definitely nothing new.  For everyone else, this post will help clarify some of my away messages on AIM/Yahoo/GTalk/etc.

Mudd is the shortened name of the engineering building at Columbia.  It is tall and big.  It is divided up such that there are one or two departments per floor.  For engineering students, more or less, all classes happen in this building.  It also houses all the research labs, a cafeteria, a library, and a computer lab.  Which brings me to the reason for writing this post:  I spend several hours every day in Mudd.  Most of that time is spent either in the computer lab or in the library, and not in classrooms.  Almost every Monday, I’m there from 10:30am to 6:30pm (minimum).  I even go there on weekends.  Pathetic?  Maybe.

All engineering students feel a strange attraction towards Mudd.  It’s like a home away from home away from home.  Our dorms act as our home away from home, but Mudd is our home away from our dorms.  The library is well-stocked and the computer lab machines have all kinds of useful software for students.  Plus, there are printers for, you know, printing stuff.  I usually go there for group study fun times or when I’m solo, I just plug in my headphones and do my work.  Few distractions.  There’s food and drinks so you really don’t have to leave the building for anything.  Except perhaps showers.  You can totally find a place to sleep if you want to.  There’s WiFi everywhere (except that one room on the 11th floor) and ethernet jacks in several rooms.  Furthermore, the elevators are crazy fast, especially when not busy.  Also, we’ve got automatic sliding doors at the entrance.  Yep, we’re engineers all right.

I obviously spend way too much time in this building, but there are others who practically live there (you know who you are).  And did I mention the sky bridge on the 10th floor that connects Mudd to the building next door?  Pretty sweet, eh?

So here we are, exactly seven days since I decided to post every day.  I’ve kept up my promise to post daily and I intend to carry on as far as I can.

Had a pretty up and down day today.  First I got two grades that didn’t make me very happy, considering that I had put in a lot of effort.  Then, today being the D-Day for fall housing, I looked on in shock as all the good rooms went quickly.  Thanks to my shitty lottery number, all the good rooms I had picked out were taken before I got my chance.  So, things were not going particularly well.

But I was able to pick into a room right across from a friend and then two more friends selected rooms on the same floor.  Quite a turn of events, I must say.  I went from wondering if I would even know anyone near me to a situation where everyone that I knew and had not selected suites are going to live right next to me.  Then a friend came over to visit and we got some good Ethiopian food and played Rock Band and Smash Bros.  And thus the day ended on a high note, in stark contrast to the way it had begun.  I now have the pleasure of working on 3 different essays for the next two weeks.  My friends, the good times have only just begun.

This post is about how a virgin sacrifice almost didn’t happen. Have fun.

The Columbia University Science Fiction Society decided to have a virgin sacrifice to appease Cthulhu. I found out from a friend and decided I had to go. I wasn’t sure if they were going through with it but figured a walk up to campus before dinner would be nice anyway. I got there a few minutes early so I thought I’d walk around campus for a bit until they started. This was 8:42pm. While walking around, I ran into my friend who was finishing up with his guitar lesson on the famous “Low Steps”. So I sat with him while he practiced playing his guitar. It was a nice evening so I stayed there for a bit. Another friend stopped by to ask for directions on a homework problem.

Now, it got to 9:20pm and there was absolutely no sign of any virgins or sacrifices. My friend and I decided to leave. It was already half an hour past their scheduled time so we thought it wasn’t happening. We had dinner at a nearby pizza place and then I headed back home while he went to his lab.

I was almost home when I got call from my friend saying there was a lot of chanting going on and the sacrifice was about to happen. I didn’t go back. Frak those lazy, unpunctual sci-fiers. Or maybe I didn’t get the memo they sent about a revised schedule because I’m not on their mailing list. In any case, it happened, and I wasn’t there. End of story.

Free concerts are the shit.  There, I said it.  Even though I’m not very familiar with the work of Grizzly Bear and The National, I had a great time at the concert.  I was all the way up front in the first row, leaning against the fence for the entire show.  I was so close that I could hear the instruments “live” rather than through the speaker system.  It was fantastic.

Grizzly Bear went first and played for almost an hour.  The one song of theirs I was familiar with, “Colorado” is apparently a rarity when they play live.  Today was certainly our lucky day - they played Colorado!  The drummer for Grizzly Bear was an interesting fella.  He did not have a bass drum but used all sorts of tricks to create a wide variety of sounds.  I could not take my eyes off his drum work.  Most of the band members are multi-instrumentalists so it was amazing to see them play several different instruments during the course of their set.

The National were crazy.  The lead singer was high on coffee and it really showed in his performance.  Again, some of the band members could play more than one instrument and they even had a trombone section!  It was a highly entertaining and energetic performance.  Being so close to the stage made it even sweeter as I got to observe the artists play their instruments.

All in all, for $0, this was a superb concert.  Anyone who says otherwise can suck it.  Also, FOUR in FOUR bitches!

I know what you’re thinking: how on earth does this guy get any time to post blog entries? Isn’t he studying engineering? Isn’t that a lot of work?

Sure, it’s fracking hard and it’s also a lot of fracking work. After a month at Columbia, things are the same: do homework, submit it, start again. The cycle of work continues endlessly. I had an exam and I got an 82 on it. That’s 2 points below the mean and two students actually got in the 90s. Better luck next time? You better hope so guy.

Now, coming to the baffling and utterly mysterious title of this post. Why the frack should you care about using a 24-hour format alarm clock? I’ll tell you why. Like right now. It’s coming up. Here it is. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

I had to wake up at 6:15am to get ready and board a bus to Philadelphia at 7:45am. It was for an international students’ trip to the wonderful city. Supposed to be a lot of fun. Well you know what, I set my 12-hour format alarm clock to 6:15pm because I didn’t notice the little PM next to the time. If I had switched the format on it to 24-hours, my alarm would have had to be for 0615 hours rather than 6:15am. The only way to screw up is if you can’t tell the difference between 0615 and 1815. Thankfully, I can tell the difference.

I was really annoyed for not checking the time and for not setting a secondary, back-up alarm. I always set two when I really need to wake up on time but this time I didn’t. My cellphone is on a 24-hour clock and so I wouldn’t have screwed up. Well, I missed the bus and there’s nothing I can do about it. I had even taken care of 75% of my homework by Friday evening so that a day of frolicking wouldn’t affect anything. ‘Twas in vain. DAMN IT!!!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to a corner of my room and weep.