Autumn in The Eug

It's autumn here in the Eug and that means Oregon football, leaves changing colors (very pretty), chilly weather, and school.

(Photo L to R: Nick, Miller, Faherty, Hutch, and Me this past weekend before the UW game)

So far the football team is doing pretty damn good. It's too bad I can't say the same thing for my Cal Bears, especially after their latest collapse against Oregon State this past weekend. Hopefully they bounce back this weekend against Wazzu before they head up here to the Eug to play Oregon on Nov. 5th. By the way, I've officially declared it Blue & Gold Week from Oct. 31 - Nov. 5 here on campus. We'll see how much verbal abuse I'll receive that week as I represent the alma mater.

I gotta admit I think autumn/fall is my favorite time of the year because the weather is still nice and it's not too warm and too cold. The changing of the leaves also brings about alot of contrast in nature, especially up here in Oregon, where nature is all around. Here's the photo of the Lillis Business Complex here at Oregon. It's pretty nice and very environmentally friendly.

(Photo: Lillis main entrance)

Not a whole lot going on these days except for school and work in the tutoring center. It's midterm season for the undergrads so they're making life in the tutoring center pretty busy. But it's a very gratifying job (as long as the students come in prepared. it's annoying when they don't look at their homework and just expect us to do it for them). I don't really have midterms but need to get started on some group projects really soon.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to heading up to Seattle and Portland in the coming weeks before heading home to LA for Thanksgiving,

Two Down, Eight to Go

It's now week 3 here at school and I'm pretty much already hitting "final-year-itis." Still looking for the motivation to really hit the books these days. It's kind of hard to really get going since I only have class on Tues, Thurs, and Fri. On Mon and Wed, I just try to put in my hours in the tutoring center (tutoring and administrative). I'm taking Negotiations, Market Research, Adv & Media Planning, and Econ. of Sports for my 4 classes. So far Negotiations is pretty interesting because I'm gonna try to learn how I can be a better bargainer/haggler next time I head out to China even if the book says bargaining and haggling are not forms of negotiation. I'm also doing my best to start learning some Chinese characters so I can hopefully take Chinese next term. Gotta get going on that one!

In terms of my apartment, I finally got a bed last week and the bed is a dream to sleep on. It was absolutely worth the extra money that I paid for this one instead of the Costco bed. And it was worth the wait. Nice and firm! I also finally got cable tv and internet last week. I felt so disconnected to the world without both of them. It's ridiculous how co-dependent I am on those two. Got some shelves too and a dresser and now my apartment is almost complete.

This past weekend was pretty rough in terms of football. Although the Ducks easily beat Arizona State, my CAL Bears lost a tough game to UCLA. CAL basically dominated the whole game but just couldn't put the baby Bruins away and cost us the game in the end. Hopefully we can win the rest of the games. One at a time but I can't wait until the Bears come up here to the Eug and then we have U$C the week after down in Berkeley. And, I already booked my flight to the Bay Area that weekend. Go Bears!













On Saturday, a bunch of the MBAs volunteered at a community garden for Food for Lane County. It was a pretty good sized and garden and the coordinatory said it produces about 35,000 pounds of food a year for Food for Lane County. For about 3 hours, we basically transferred a HUGE pile of decomposing (and stinky) leaves from one end of the garden to the other. I think I may have to burn those clothes I'm wearing in the photo. Though it was hard work, it was fun hanging out with everybody and giving back to the community.

Tonight, our MBA flag football team won it's first game ever! Last we year, we basically got smoked in every one of our games. It wasn't pretty. I play center and basically just snap the ball and then job about 5 yards and turn around and I'm always open cuz I'm so slow the other team just forgets about me. I ended up catching 5 passes including an extra point and a 60 yard touchdown where I "faked" out a bunch of players on the other team while almost getting my shorts and underwear pulled off towards the end of the play (that would not have been a pretty sight). I'm pretty damn slow now (the other said I looked like I was moving in slow-motion) so I don't know how they didn't catch me. Well, I'm not complaining. It was fun and we'lll see how we do next week.