I just don't learn, do I

'Hope springs eternal from the human breast' that something might change and I might find enjoyment or entertainment at one of the dances held her at GCC. Being slow to comprehend that I do not enjoy myself at any of these 'extremely interesting' events, I went tonight with the rest of my hall to the Homecoming Dance. The funniest part was getting ready, actually. All the guys on the hall spruced themselves up real nice, myself included, for this event. Ties, Jackets, Shirts...we all looked pretty spiffy. Of course, we were practically the only people who had bothered to do so, but it was still interesting. The dance itself was like all of the other dances to date - except that it was a bit colder. I was glad that I had on my long-sleeved shirt rather than a short-sleeved. They did bring in a large supply of pizza, however, so at least there was food to keep me there for a time. This time, I wandered aimlessly about the outskirts of the crowd for over an hour before deciding that the time wasted there could be used more profitably elsewhere. This dance was marginally better then the others - the noise was not quite so overpoweringly loud (or I am getting used to the noise), and there weren't quite so many people. Of course, while wandering, I found many things to ponder, one of which was, "why do I keep coming to these events when I know that I will not enjoy myself or bring enjoyment to others?" Probably because my sociology class has a test coming on monday, I began thinking in terms of the 'social construction and actions of individuals.' According to George Homans and his idea of humans as Rational Actors, I was attending the event BECAUSE I disliked it. Rational choice theory assumes that all human actions are motivated rationally for achieving a reward. This reward is different for various people - for most of the people at the dance, their reward could have been fun, friends, relaxation, food, etc. His 5th principle, the Aggression/Approval Proposition, states that at times, when the desired reward cannot be received, the anger and frustration itself can serve as the reward for human actions. Therefore, According to this theory, because I do not have fun, I am attending the event. This may or may not be true: Homan's theory is excellent at predicting what people will do, but makes no attempt to examine the reasons behind the movement, or what exactly the reward for a particular person may be. It is useful, but not full truth. I am not very sure that that is the reason that I attend, but it does provide one possible answer to the reason for my behavior.

Its 11:30 - I'm tired - Saturday's a rugby day! - I need a shower - I'm going to stop typing now and let you people out there read this magnificent, elegant, wonderful, and grammatically perfect (these adjectives all subject to liberal interpretation) post. Signing off,

Jeremy Turpin

Saturday's a Rugby Day!!

Saturday's A Rugby Day! Grove Rug-By!

1:00 EDT - Grove City Men's Rugby team is playing Juniata College. Our first home game, and during homecoming weekend. There's Something I've been meaning to post for a while, but keep forgetting. Before each game, the team circles up and listens to a reading of the Scriptures. The verses that have been read to us each game have been 2 Samuel 22:31-43. This is a passage that especially calls upon the manly qualitites of the ruggers...

31 As for God, His way is blameless;
The word of the LORD is tested;
He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.
32 For who is God, besides the LORD?
And who is a rock, besides our God?
33 God is my strong fortress;
And He sets the blameless in His way.
34 He makes my feet like hinds' feet,
And sets me on my high places.
35 He trains my hands for battle,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
36 You have also given me the shield of Your salvation,
And Your help makes me great.
37 You enlarge my steps under me,
And my feet have not slipped.
38 I pursued my enemies and destroyed them,
And I did not turn back until they were consumed.
39 And I have devoured them and shattered them, so that they did not rise;
And they fell under my feet.
40 For You have girded me with strength for battle;
You have subdued under me those who rose up against me.
41 You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me,
And I destroyed those who hated me.
42 They looked, but there was none to save;
Even to the LORD, but He did not answer them.
43 Then I pulverized them as the dust of the earth;
I crushed and stamped them as the mire of the streets.

Amen!

It's a good day today

Today is a very good day. All fridays are ordinarily good intrinsically - a promise of an end of classes for the week, a feeling of fulfillment about the week ending, and a sense of rest. This friday, today, was even better then the usual. One reason was because of my Physics class, and the other because of my Chemistry class. We received our tests back for Physics this morning. I aced it. 101/101. class average of 82. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise Him, Praise the Lord. My chemistry test was also returned today - 101/103. Class average: 76. Another round of praise for the God on High who alone has given me the capacity and knowledge to do well in these tests. Also, a less important item. My chemistry professor, Dr. Falcetta, has a unique skill to find advice for future relationships by examination of Molecular bonding, Polar covalent bonds, electronegativity, electron configurations, the ideal gas law, and other chemical subjects. Now, I heard him begin such a topic today, and quickly got my computer recording it. When I find a way to post it, I will, and allow you to hear some of the wisdom stored in the atoms and molecules that make up our world. Todays subject for relationships was Polar Covalent molecules - teaching how to respond when someday one gets married and discovers that thier spouse has high blanketativity - the quality that determines how strongly a person attracts all of the blankets on the bed to themselves. This is related to electronegativity and the sharing and atomic bonding.mp3of electrons within a molecule. Here is the download link for the file - It is a bit quiet so you may have to turn up your volume...
http://zupload.com/download.php?file=getfile&filepath=17299
Hope you enjoy it, and hope that your friday has been good too!!

Jeremy

Blocking the ball from reaching the end of the hall, and defending oneself against the ball which is travelling at a high velocity directly towards every part of your body at once, which is explainable by taking into account the calculations for the de Broglie wavelength. According to Quantum Mechanics, all moving objects are waves, and therefore their location and exact destination cannot be determined - only the range of possibilities based on the calculated de Broglie wavelength. Therefore, it is not impossible that the ball is traveling directly towards each part of the body at the same time, given a high enough speed on the order of 100,000,000 meters per second (approaching the speed of light) - which may be well below the actual speed of the ball in this game. Now the math for this is shown as Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah....(you wouldn't read it anyway)

A new sport is born - Dorm tennis. the goal - hit the other player or the opposing wall with the ball. Field: 4 foot by 50 foot hallway. Equipment: 2 tennis racquets, one bouncy ball, Obliging hall-mates. Have fun - hopefully no injuries!

Another shot of the Women's Rugby game. Get the ball!!

The women's match between Grove City and Geneva was right before ours - yes, girls play rugby too. They appeared to be as fierce and fired up as the guys were. Grove City won the match

Yellow: Geneva College. Red: Grove City College Rugby Team!!! Another Game today, at Geneva College, about 1:15 southwest of Grove City. This was a real game that counts, unlike the last one, and this one we won, 8-6. I even got to play for a couple of minutes (there were only 1 or 2 other new forwards out of 7-10 that got to play) Right here, Heestan (the big guy in the middle, #3) is tackling one of the geneva players who has the ball. We scored a tri (touchdown - 5 pts) and a kick (field goal - 3 pts).

Happening, Stuff

Stuff is happening. Yeah. That's about it. Just Stuff. No more, no less.

Life at college is settling down and becoming routine - to an extent. There are lots of fun (fun for some people, at least) events happening on campus all the time. Last thursday, Jeremy Camp, Tree 63, and Bethany Dillon had a concert in the GCC arena. Our RA was one of the main coordinators for the event, so I and a couple of other guys from our hall went to help set up the stage on wednesday evening and thursday afternoon. We installed a temporary stage, and then helped the concert stage crew to set up the thousands of wires, connectors, mics, lights, speakers, dual computerized sound mixers, bases, and extra-heavy-duty power inputs. This part was pretty fun - the concert on the other hand was loud, long, and the music and voices barely intelligble among the other background noise. For my Civilization class, I have to attend and write about 4-5 'civilizing' events over the course of the semester, with the demand that I actually remain at the event to its conclusion. This requirement is why I stayed until the end of the concert - If you havn't already picked up from previous posts, I am not big on loud noise and large crowds in those situations. The music was probably good, but I couldn't tell. Setting up was fun, though.
For some reason, I have already aquireded a reputation in my hall for toughness, strength, and large appetite. Being on the rugby team may have influenced these opinions. Also my affinity for computers (translated: geek), and math (geek) and also science (again, geek) have been noticed, and, at times, appreciated.
Next Rugby game is at Geneva College on saturday. Hopefully when I play, I will be able to remeber what to do...
Signing off (the pizza is showing up), and sorry for the ramble,

Jeremy Turpin

Chris, this is for you

OK, Chris, I hope you read this - you might find it amusing!

http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

'Where are the weapons of mass destruction?'

Line Out - happens when the ball goes out of bounds. Equivalent to a throw-in in soccer, except that each team lifts up a teammate to catch or redirect the ball to thier side.

A Grover was tackled - Green moves in to attempt to get the ball - Red comes to support the downed teammate in a Ruck.

Rugby - The setup for kicking off prior to beginning the carnage (Grove City is the Red Team)

The Ligonier Highland Games Heavy Events - Kaber toss. The Kaber for this eventt was 16 feet long and 150 pounds. The competitors had to throw the log end-over-end so it stood up at 90 degrees from the ground before falling forward.

Ligonier Highland Games

The Scottish Highland games were pretty cool - although it was a very long day. After a 2 hour bus ride, we 'stepped into history' (kinda-sorta. You gotta use the lame cliches occasionally). The shrill sound of bagpipes greeted us as we neared the grounds, the percussion of drums reaching us also. Through the day, several hundred (a very conservative guess) bagpipers performed all over the grounds, uniting at the end of the day with the drummers to play amazing grace at the main event field. The smell of Haggis drifted with the scent of hot dogs (for the less adventurous) and the sight of kilts became commonplace. Vendors sold swords that would possibly even rival Matthew's monstrosity. Since our game wasn't until 4:00, the team spent the time from 10:00 until 3:00 in watching the Kaber tossing, the axe throwing [some guy with arms the size of my waist threw the 'axe' (a 4-foot metal handle around an inch in diameter, with a 6 or greater inch diameter metal ball on the end) (rather heavy) 161'11" (one inch shy of the record!) ] and slept on the grass. Coming to the event was fun in and of itself, but my purpose for coming was to play (or at least watch) a rugby game, which happened not so punctually at 4:30. The results in advance - Grove City lost ~20 to nothing, with the team from Franciscan University scoring 5 tri's and 2-3 kicks. (a tri is similar to a touchdown and worth 5 points, and the kicks follow the score through the goal posts, worth 2 points). Well, it definately gives room for improvement. My part in the game was small - I subbed in for the start of the second 40-minute half, and played for a couple of minutes, making one good hit. The game seemed to be a blur - it was a small field, which didnt help, and the other team had left many of thier better players in, outplaying the new guys on the GCC side. Oh well. I got to watch, which was more important for learning how to play. It was a good game, casualty-wise. We had two injuries on our side, and only one fatality (just kidding). One guy had a huge gash in his forehead right at his eyebrow that required 5 stitches, and the other had a dislocated collarbone that popped back into place, still causing excruciating pain. So, after the game we waited at the hospital until 9:00 for the doctors to patch them up, followed by another 2-hour bus ride back to the college. After that experience, some people would actually want to stick with this crazy sport. I happen to be one of those people, so I can't wait until practice tomorrow night and our next game in two weeks. Another week of college classes await me - I'm starting #3 already!!!

Jeremy Turpin

Rugby Practice

Run! Run! Hit him! Ruck! Ruck! No, its over - come back. OK, don't do what you just did. It might be against the rules, it might be bad form, it might be detrimental to the health of another player, possibly detrimental to your own health, it might make the ref angry, or it might just be bad karma. Next! Ready, set GO! (ooof)(HuH!)(sounds of mankind crashing into eachother at high velocity)(arms and legs manage to catch eachother)(guys push one way or another over the form of the tackled player for control of the ball)(people with a small idea of what they are supposed to be doing add mass to the confusion)(Approximately same dialog as before)(repeat several times). OK guys, thats the last one. Time for sprints. (assorted groans and breath being caught)...

In case you hadn't picked up, I have joined the GCC Mens rugby club. It seems like an interesting, fun, and extremely physically demanding sport. The only problem is, I and the rest of the new members of the team, are picking up the details of the game in bits and pieces during drills and practices.

Simplistic definition of rugby: a full-contact, heavily modified sport combined of football and soccer.
Simple definition of how to play the game: There isnt one (that I know or anyone on the team could give me).

I enjoy the practices - Its great to be able to exercise and see that my body can be forced to perform what I believed possible, and discovering my strengths and many weeknesses. Sprints, for example, are the most brutal part of practice, and the part I most hate while doing. Sample: Setup of field - 3 cones entitled 1, 2, and 3 - one cone about 10 feet from the line that the team is lined up behind, 1 cone that is about 50-60 feet away, and one cone that is hidden behind the curvature of the earth (the tall grass and short cones may have something to do with this phenomenon) "OK. Sprint to 2, Jog back" This one's not too bad. "OK. Again. Go"- "OK (pant, pant). Again. Go" - "Sprint to 3, jog to 2, jump as high as you can 20 times, jog back." - getting . . out . . . of breath . . by now - "Sprint to three, sprint back" - "again" - can't breath . . . we gotta be done . . - "sprint to 3, jog back" - at least theres some jogging to catch your breath - "Jog to 2, Sprint back" - huf huf - "back and forth to one 6 times at a full explosive sprint, touch the ground each time you get to the line" - finally! finished! yay! I can breath again! - Two minutes later - pain and breathlessness forgotten, legs feeling great, not tired or sore, moving with a long, fast stride towards the MAP Dining Hall.

As long as I am not actually running, or hitting, or being tackled at the present time, I feel as if rugby is a very fun and exciting sport. Our first game is this Saturday, and I actually hope that I won't be playing, because I still dont understand exactly how to play or what can get be in trouble! Seeing an actual game would be a big help. It is a part of a Scottish 'Heritage Festival' (or something to that effect, possibly highlander games would be another name for it) with kaber tossing, food, other scottish competitions, and stuff like that. I am planning on taking lots of pictures - it could be an interesting post about 9-10PM Pensylvania time on Saturday night. . .

More Later, You've been reading
The Musings of a(n) (adjective required) mind

(P.S. Anyone have ideas for something to replace [Adjective Required] with?)

A Treatise on Modern College Dancing

Wow - three posts in one day - dont get used to it! Its a saturday after only one week of easy homework = extra time - plus, there are so many interesting topics!

This research paper intends to explore the causes and treatment of Dances on Modern College Campuses. Sources for this subject are exhaustive individual studies and observations of a campus Street Dance at a small private, Christain college in northwestern Pensylvania, whose name is withheld for 'legal' reasons (it makes it sound like a real research paper). Approximately 29.55 minutes of observation occured before the observer had had enough of an earfull of the loud, tuneless music and congested crowds, after which he (semi-)gracefully extracted himself from the grounds and walked at a respectable pace (interpret: fled) from the scene of noise and confusion to the relative safety and comfort of the dorm. The purpose of this paper is to state the kind of strange occurances that college dances have become.
The music at such functions shall be the first point of this exploration. To an uninitiated listener, the type of music at such events can not be determined. A mixure of noises similar to a large group of small children, chimpanzees and other monkeys banging on a sizable assortment of percussion instruments intermixed with random chords of guitars and bases thrown in for good measure, and overlaid with a voice that does not seem to be speaking any known or even unknown toungue would be difficult to classify as music. Nevertheless, although variations existed in the noise, all of the 'music' played seemed to have the same tuneless qualities of heavy base, percussion, and random voices.
The people at the event are the most interesting study. At least four different 'classes' of attendees can frequent a particular event. Foremost and most easy to differentiate from the others are the 'Dancers.' These are the people grouped around the stage yelling, screaming, 'dancing,' and generally making fools of themselves as most of us do from time to time. Thier location gives the source of another alias: 'groupies.' The second group is the 'Wannabe Groupies.' These are the people who are also grouped around the stage, but do not seem to be enjoying themselves as the 'Groupies' are. These generally do not join in the dancing often, and when they do, they are unenthusiastic and appear to be moving merely to mimic the convulsions of thier friends around them. Thirdly, 'Talkers' abound at the standard college dance, along with all of the other college events. Congregating in clumps throughout the procedings, 'Talkers' spend thier time in conversing with friends, sweethearts, enemies, and complete strangers alike with perfect form, and varied conversation that cannot be understood because of the noise of the music and voices of the dancers. Fourth are the 'walkers.' These wander aimlessly throughout the crowd of people, sampling food, wearing strained and forced smiles of enjoyment, or even no smile at all. 'Walkers' do not feel as if they belong at such an event - the music is loud, the people louder, and feel as if all of thier friends were either smarter then they in not attending, or are actually having fun at a dance that seems completely boring. These four groups appear in decreasing percentages, i.e., there are more 'dancers' then 'wannabe groupies,' and so on.
An observation of the dancing in such groups results in interesting conclusions. First, that depending on the breadth of your definition of 'Dancing,' the movements of the 'dancers' in the group might not even be interpreted as dancing. Granting the point that the 'dancers' are actually dancing for the sake of simplicity of terms, the dancing itself must then be analyzed. The standard dance that is performed at a standard even is both complex and simple. First, group the maximum number of people as into as small an area as possible. At the control occasion, an estimated 1300 dancers and wannabe groupies were centered around the stage. This estimate resulted from a simple calculation concerning the area of a circle and an estimate of how many square feet of pavement each person used. The crowd formed a rough half-circle around the stage with a radius of approximately 30 ft. Using the mathematical formula for the area of a circle and dividing it in half, an equasion results similar to the diagram on the left. Needless to say, this is a lot of people in a small area - very conducive to group dancing. The dancing itself is very simple to learn - in fact, there is nothing to learn - one must only come to disregard embarrasment at ones own strange behavior. First - watch a video of or visualize someone having a seizure while standing up. Then attempt to duplicate their motions in time to music. After this has been perfected, begin to add random jerks and swings of your various limbs and digits. Occasionally (emphasizing random movements and timing) combine with jumps, bouncing, rolling and swaying about the hips, and waving hands in air. The most important part of this form of group dancing is that eveyone must attempt to duplicate the actions of their neighbors, while at the same time look completely different from everyone else in the group. Even without any dancing experience whatsoever, an attendee can look like an expert (mainly because there are no standards to determine expert status) in seconds with this approach.
This paper is not meant to show that such dances as the one discussed here are in any way bad, undesirable, or something to completely enjoy. Quite possibly, everyone besides the author enjoyed the event greatly. The point of this piece is to raise humorous thoughts about the subject.

Jeremy Turpin

The Hulk

The Hulk after an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. (Hey - the ripped shirt makes me look tough!)
There are two stories you can hear. If you are gullible, I took on 3 football players and won, losing only my shirt. For the majority of you who are not gullible, I reached up above my head to catch the frisbee and ripped open the Shirt. Oh well. Will have to safety-pin up the rip and wear it to events where an unique look is required...

Grove City College - an insider's view

Grove City college (in the eight days that I have been here) seems to be a great place to get an education. The professors are friendly, helpful, not cruel or sadistic (until final exam time, possibly), and even humerous at times. The students are all courteous and outgoing for the most part, and the high trust that the students have in each other can be seen by the fact that most of the times, doors in my dorm are left unlocked or even open. Laptops are left in the lobbies of the dining halls, and retrieved half an hour later after the meal without turning up missing. There are some parts that are not neccesarily bad, but are not those attributes that I particularly enjoy, either. One of these would be the heavy encouragement by students, student leaders, RA's (Upperclass Resident Assistants), and even faculty for students to have a girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other. Another is the frequent mention of this school as a ''School of Marriages." Needless to say, these emphasis on intimate personal relationships makes it difficult to make the aquaintance (of girls in my case) while keeping myself and those I meet free from these expectations. Possibly (Probably) this is a situation that is found everywhere, but it still rubs on me and adds too much thought to simple interation with other people. (It probably dosn't help that I havn't been around ~300 girls of my age at the same time in my life)(as well as my dismal social skills among mass numbers of people that I don't know)(or those I DO know for that matter)(as well as my difficulty with getting to know people without being forced to interact and work together for various goals/projects) As a result of this challenge, I can probably match names to faces of around 2 girls on campus (and the second one I am not sure as to the name)
School is enjoyable, though. In chemistry lectures we light magnesium on fire, create fireworks out of rust and aluminum powder (and on wednesday we get to see explosions resulting from chemical reactions. Cool Stuff!!). Homework has not been horrendous (yet), and I may even have time to do some activities on campus (other then classes, homework, and studying) for an hour every couple of weeks. The food isn't bad, and in fact, I find it good in many cases. Its not homemade, but after eating at Boy Scout mess halls, campouts, and trips for 7 years, this stuff is excellent. There are times when the food is unappetizing, but there is always the All-You-Can-Eat Chinese place just down the road...

The first week of school is OB (Orientation Board) week. It began when we pulled the car to the curb last friday and a group of enthusiastic guys and gals grabbed my 7 pieces of luggage (each about 50lb) and hauled them up to my room on the Third floor of Ketler Dormitory, east gable. After collapsing under the weight of their loads at the top of the stairs, they staggered and slid the luggage into the room before going back down the stairs to help the rest of the freshmen move in. (note to self: did I really need all of the stuff that I brought?)

There are a lot of campus organizations - I signed up for the ski and snowboard club, for example. After skiing off cliffs on Mt. Rose and all of the other resorts around the Tahoe Basin, the 4400 ft PEAK at the most popular ski resort will probably seem kind of tame (I have been warned by several people), but hey, you take what you can get. There should be around 4 outings this year/semester (not sure which).

All of the guys in my residence hall are pretty cool. There are a lot of athletes (soccer, lacrosse, water polo, etc.) among them, as well as several other electrical and mechanical engineering students. (NOTE: the engineering program at Grove City is affectionately known as the pre-Business program - especially the electrical engineering)

More college life later - stay tuned - (and remember the disclaimer!!)

To Muse, or not to Muse

After the repeated and insistent requests of the public (i.e. my brother reccomended it once or twice and Tim Klein asked if I had one once) for me to begin a blog for everyone back home to read and see what was happening with me, I have commenced the undertaking. A warning to those who may or may not be wary: do not expect frequent, verbose, or profound messages to appear on this Blog. When any of these attributes happen to be true, it should be considered as occuring by chance only, not as if obeying a general rule. Now, disclaimer aside, if I happen to find time to jot down a few words, reading said words may or may not be entertaining or enlightening. I may be thoughtful, or dense, boring, technical, or even, perhaps, wax philosophical at times. (note: last option rather unlikely) Read at your own risk...

A quick word on my current situation:
After an extremely long set of plane flights across the US, a stop in a Wings, Suds, and Spuds restauraunt in pittsburg, and an hour's drive through some Amish country of Pensylvania, I arrived at Grove City College. I believe that I will enjoy myself here (although the blocking of many/most TCP/IP/UDP ports in the college network is perturbing) and will learn much in my planned four years of college, studying to become an electrical engineer.

More later - 11:20 PM, and bed, a 7:15 AM breakfast, followed by 8:00 AM Physics class await me. Signing off, you've been reading,



One note: Tablet PC's are Cool!!