To Be A College Student for a Weekend

Hey everyone. This past Thursday was my film club's annual student film festival. Since I was a student 5 months ago, I made some short films with them and entered them into the festival. However, since I'm now a full time employee, I can't just go across the state and watch short films with my friends on a weeknight. So I had to use 2 days vacation time to have fun, and with the way my department is structured, it wasn't a problem (even though a couple of guys that know me from my internships gave me a hard time about taking vacation less than a month from starting, lol). So here's my experience.

I woke up Thursday morning and hit the road at about 10AM. I didn't have any trouble finding where I had to go, and when I broke for lunch I went to a GoodWill that was really close to the McDonald's I stopped at. I picked up a PS2 DDR dance pad for $2. The cashier was happy that someone bought it since apparently they don't sell very fast. After lunch I continued driving to my old college. I made it after about 3 hours. Once I got there, I made a quick stop at my engineering campus. I was hoping to see some old friends or maybe some professors, but neither were there. Well that figures, most of my friends that would hang out at the cafe or computer lab graduated, and it was during class hours so my professors were probably teaching a class. Oh well, it was cool seeing my second home again. After the engineering college I went to the GoodWill that was 1 mile away from campus. I bought a PS2 RF adapter, brand new for cheap.

After the GoodWill, I went to the student union where I wanted to hang out, hoping to find some old friends or just watch Toonami on AdultSwim.com. I had to re-configure my laptop so I could access the school's wifi. Now this Wi-Fi is just meant for students, but since I still have my log-in information, and they only reset log-in servers at the beginning of the school year (I think), I was able to log-in and still enjoy the student Wi-Fi. I told my friends I would be there, and one of my friends I met in my last semester stopped by to talk. Oh, I also had to use the visitor metered parking since I was a visitor. The meters at my college are a rip-off. It's 1 quarter for 10 minutes. Every meter parking I know of (down town my home town and down town my college's close city) give you 30 minutes for a quarter. I had to pay like $5 in quarters to park at the student union for the couple hours I was there. Then when I went to the auditorium parking, I had some trouble finding a spot since there was like some event going on, so I accidentally parked in "30 minute limit" parking, only to find out after pumping $1.50 in to see "the time's not increasing." I found another spot that was REALLY close to another car, so I had some fun getting out. Then I spent about another $5 on meters.

But then things got fun. I went to the building where the festival was happening, and went to where it was before. I set-up at a lounge and watched some more Toonami. Eventually one of the current members of the group told me they were meeting upstairs. I packed-up my stuff and met them up there. This is when I started filming the fun behind the scenes video I always do, and I'll get it all edited together, once I get my camera back from my friend. It was fun seeing them again. We hung out and got caught up while the others scrambled to get things all set-up for the night. And then TisLiberte, our former president of 3 years, showed up and that's when things got REALLY fun. Whereas I was one of the most dedicated member that really bled for the group in my last semester, TisLiberte was probably the most dedicated member ever and just brought a whole lot of fun to the group. Oh man we had some fun.

Now it's film time. Everyone got in and, well I'll let the video speak for itself (once I get the footage and edit it). I entered 3 shorts I filmed over the semester; got pyramid, Pokemon anime/game cross over, and School: an Educational Establishment (featuring iMonster). Halfway through the festival there was intermission. I changed into my Oddish costume. Oh that was fun, and everyone really enjoyed it. There was also photo booth fun. Here's the picture of TisLiberte and I.

Yeah it was fun. After intermission it was time for more films. After more great films, it was time for judging. I changed back into normal clothes, and took some more video. The winners were all deserving of their coveted golden VHS tapes (my idea from 3 years ago might I add when they were talking about how expensive real trophies would be). It was kind of symbolic in that the short film that had not only TisLiberte, our president of 3 years, directing it, it also had a founding father work on it, and we tried to call him in Florida to congratulate him live during the acceptance speech. We left him a fun voice mail. It was a fun 4 hours of short films, that ended at 11 PM. Why, because college. The films were really good this year. Like, previous years there were some really bad films, and not just "I'm an engineer that doesn't understand experimental art house" bad, but "film students in the group were making fun of how bad they were later" bad. This year they were quite funny/entertaining, and the worst was "well it just dragged on a little."

Afterwards, everyone that was still around went to IHOP for dinner/late night snack. There were like 9 of us that were there. It was really fun to just hang out with the film club again, while eating chocolate chip pancakes. One of the members jokingly asked the group (not the waitress) "what's on draft?" (There's no alcohol served at the international house of pancakes, so it was quite funny). Why ask something like that, because college. We were there for 2 hours having fun, hanging out, and enjoying breakfast food. One guy got a 55 and over menu option. I don't think the waitress really cared. Another member wanted a child smiley face pancake, but he decided against it and got an adult meal. Also, bear in mind that we got there at like 11 PM at night, and we stayed there until 1 AM. Why? Because college. I showed up at my friend who was letting me spend the weekend with him on one of his futons at like 1:30 AM, and he had a test the next morning at like 8:30 AM (I don't miss that part of college).

OK so it's now Friday morning. I wake up at 10 AM (because vacation), and have some coco krispies while I surf the morning web. So this was kind of funny; I'm sitting in my friend's living room with his girlfriend, and the power was cut off because he forgot to pay the electric bill or something. It was kind of funny to see it actually happen. I went to McDonald's for lunch, and then pumped $6 into the meter so I could park until they stopped enforcing it. I intended to just watch Toonami until Pokemon, but I ran into a friend and we talked for about 2 hours. After she had to leave I watched Toonami, and hopped that I could see Saint and/or Sudden, but they were busy. Oh well.

So now it's Pokemon time. I wore my Oddish costume, and it went over quite well. The president has always given me a hard time about how cringey my costume was, since it's just a blue spandex morph suit with a plastic fern sticking out of the back. He was fine with it once he saw it in person, and the vice president wanted a picture with it for his snap chat. We had fun with a game of Pokemon Trivia, and it was quite a fun time, especially to be a college student again.

After Pokemon I went back to my friend's place and we ate the extra popcorn from the film festival while we watched Clerks. Oh yeah, a local movie theater donated like a couple cubic yards of popcorn for the film festival, and there was like a cubic yard left over. I took the left over and gave it to my friend as a "thank-you for letting me crash" gift. Why? Well I'm just naturally eccentric like that (it wasn't "because college" this time lol). We watched Clerks specifically because I was talking about it when we watched Bowfinger last time I was in town. In Bowfinger Steve Martin's character says something like "every movie is filmed on a budget of $1000," and Clerks really was filmed on a budget of like $1000 (though it was actually more like $23,000 according to Wikipedia). He really enjoyed it, and we had like $20 worth of movie popcorn while watching it. I also had like Indian Rammen for dinner with him (because he's Indian and a college student, so he of course had bricks of instant noodles sitting around that remind him of home). They tasted really good, but later that night I woke up with some indigestion because of the spices or something. Curse my Caucasian American intestinal system, because they were REALLY good. Oh well. After the movie we watched an episode of "Those Who Can't," because that was advertised on Crackle when we watched Bowfinger the last time I was in town, and he had a lot of fun with it.

It's Saturday now. Since I was on that side of the state, I decided I was going to take the extra hour to go visit Brandi. It was a little hard going there alone, but I still felt good to visit her. Her grave wasn't marked yet, so I spent about 5 minutes walking around the small cemetery "playing hide and seek." When I gave up looking for her headstone, I stood where I remember the burial happening and just said my prayers while looking around. Oh Brandi; even in death you're still very playful. After my last point of visit, I started the now 3 hour drive home. I got home around 5 PM and I had a lot of fun being a college student again. Well, now it's time to go back to being a real world adult. I'll be sure to link the film festival video once I get my camera back and the video edited and uploaded.

But until then, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Graduating College and the Last Weeks

Well everyone, after 4 and a half years, 9 total semesters, I am fully graduated. Boy, this was a journey. I had some really crazy classes, really fun adventures, and all sorts of fun and stress. You can look through the last 4 years of posts if you want to remember the fun. But this isn't a time to talk about all the old times, I already have. Today, I'm going to talk about the ending of it all.

Lets go back to the week before finals. This was when I had the last meetings of all my clubs. With my students for life club, we had a nice Christmas party where we listened to Christmas music, ate snack foods, made baby blankets to donate to the crisis pregnancy center that Brandi volunteered for, and were our overall goofy selves. I played Veggie Tales Christmas Silly Songs (Oh Santa and 8 Polish Foods Of Christmas) and Bob and Doug McKenzi's 12 Day of Christmas. Since we're like an unofficial Christian group (all the members just happen to be Catholic), everyone recognized the Veggie Tales songs, and then the older guys in the group thought Bob and Doug's 12 Days of Christmas was funny because of the "on the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a beer." Good final time with them.

At my last filmmakers club meeting, I gave a going away speech as the last OG member. I gave a history of the club from the beginning, and how all the events impacted me and the group as a whole for better or worse. It was a really moving speech, and a great way to say fair well to the club that kept me from just being surrounded by engineers 24/7. At my Pokemon club we had a little pizza party, and I brought book marks for all the club members. These were official scholastic book fair Pokemon bookmarks my mom got to give to her students, but she said "no, my son and his Pokemon club will appreciate these more than my students," and they did. We played some Pokemon TCG, and then played smash bros and Pokemon Stadium. I dominated at the minigames, for the most part. There were some games where the input lag on the HDTV screwed me over, and I was like "I want a rematch, on a CRT. Lets go out to the smash players with their CRT's and play without input lag." Yeah, that's me. We didn't though, and I still won. Afterwards I tried selling some of my duplicate amiibo, but that failed. Oh well. Anyone want to buy Sonic new in box?

Finals pre-weekend I did what I always do, lock my self in my dorm and study like crazy. I did, for the most part. I only had 3 REAL finals considering that 1 final was a presentation (Tri-Z) and another was a guided discussion (Health and Wellness). Saturday I studied for Digital Logic, and Sunday I studied for Mechanics of Materials and History of the World. I probably should have divided them up more evenly since History and Mechanics were the harder subjects. Oh well. I ultimately did well in all my classes. My Tri-Z presentation went well, and I got my ISM challenge coin afterwards. That presentation was on Monday, my only test Monday. I did help my one friend study for digital logic on Monday. He somehow got a bootleg copy of the final from last year, and we studied off that. I helped him by showing him how to do those problems, and it helped me by having to teach the material.

On Tuesday I had Digital Logic and Health and Wellness finals. Digital Logic was one of the easiest tests I've ever taken. We had 2 hours to do the test. I was done in 45 minutes. It wasn't just because the test was almost identical to the one from the previous year, but because I was just so prepared. Boy, a 2000 level class is REALLY simple when you're used to 4000 (almost 5000) level classes. Then the discussion for Health and Wellness was really easy, just talk about the semester as a class. After the final some friends and I went to McDonald's to get Pokemon Happy Meals. Yeah, 3 college students, 1 a graduating senior, went to get Pokemon Happy Meals. We were a sight. It was great to hang out with them outside of a classroom setting. I'm going to keep in contact with them.

On Wednesday I had my Mechanics of Materials and World History finals. Mechanics I was confident, but kind of unjustly so, because I only knew about half of the stuff on it for sure, and the other half I kind of knew the general concept. Ultimately I think I did well enough considering that I got an A in the class. Whatever. In my history class I think I also did fairly well, even though I just kept cramming and cramming without much results. I went to the room an hour beforehand in hopes that it would keep me from getting distracted. It kind of did, but not really. I still got an A though. That night my friend since freshman year and I hung out to celebrate the end of finals and film a parody theme song for Pokemon based on engineering. I'll get that uploaded at the end of the week. Fun time.

Now for Thursday. On Thursday the only big thing was going to pick up my brother. He was getting a ride to about where my college was. OK, it was like 50 miles from my college, but closer than his college at the other end of the state. He and I did some packing, but mostly hung out. We watched a James Bond film until he passed out from exhaustion on my futon.

Friday is when the festivities really began. First of all I had to get my brother's ticket for graduation. I showed up to the ticket counter at about 9 AM, told them my name and how many tickets I needed, and then went on my way. My dad got up to my school around noon, and we were moving out my stuff. I was planning on checking out on Saturday, but because I didn't go through the necessary steps, I had to move out on Friday. Whoops. Oh well, we were able to get it all out and in the vehicles. Not long before I was all done my mom arrived after dropping my grandparents off at the hotel. She moved some things. After getting all my stuff out, I went through the procedure to check out and turn in my keys. I said bye to my dorm room of 2 and a half years. It was alright. After that we went to the hotel and picked up my grandparents for my honors college chord presentation. I graduated with honors and got honors chords to show it. There was a little ceremony where we were presented with our chords. It was a nice little ceremony, and my mom got to see the parents and grandparents of my one friend who is the cousin of one of her friends. It's a really small world. We met in calc 2, and by coincidence my mom found out that he's the cousin of some of her old college friends. Yeah, funny how life is. At the ceremony we have someone important to our college journey present us with our chords. I had my grandma give me my chords.

After the ceremony, we made our Christmas card photo with me in my graduation get-up and my parents and brother. After the picture, we went right to Costco to get them in so they would be ready the next day. However, since it was a really slow night, they said they would be ready in an hour. So we ordered our pizza and waited. For some reason this kid just walked up to me and started talking with me about Pokemon. I asked him "do I know you?" and he said "maybe, you look familiar." My mom found it very surreal since the kid dressed and acted like me at that age, and was very into Pokemon. I tried to be as uncreepy as possible, since he was like 10 years younger than me and I was a stranger, but I also didn't want to be all "go away kid." It was really weird.

On Saturday, it was the main event. It's all been leading up to this. I wake up, eat breakfast with my family, and get fully dressed for the occasion (freshly ironed gown, honors stole, 2 sets of honors chords, and hat with 2 tassels, one for my college and one for my university). We drive up to the auditorium to drop my grandparents and I off. I had to go check in. I found my way to the graduate area. After finding the right place for my college, I got my things and found a seat. I looked for friends to sit next to, but none of my friends had showed up yet. I'm really glad I brought my 3DS with me. After about 15 minutes one of my good college friends showed up. We talked for the other 15 minutes while we waited. Nothing super earth shattering, just some nerd small talk. I filled out the card for getting graduation pictures once those came around. All went well.

Well now it's time to march us out. I was expecting alphabetical order, but instead they called our names when we gave them the card with our names on it, which made it fun to sit next to friends, but hard to coordinate when to take snapshots of the event. I set-up a text to tell my brother to get ready when I was next. Before we walked into the auditorium I got my picture taken back stage. We walked out into the auditorium and got some speeches. They were nice speeches. The best was when the president of the university used the meme that surrounds him. It was great. I walk back stage, get in line, tell the people calling the names my name, and then walk out. I had my family cheer for me, shook hands with the university president while receiving my $100,000 piece of paper, shook hands with the dean of the engineering college while receiving my engineering challenge coin, shook hands with my professors that were there, and hug the lady that works in the admission office. It was great to walk. Afterwards I made some jokes to my friend, like when the president said "by the power vested in me by this institution, I now pronounce you graduates," when I leaned over and said "you may now kiss the diploma," and also when there was a 3rd "the third" I leaned over and said "that's the third third." Great ceromony.

So after the ceremony I was tasked with finding my family. I ran into the same friend that I filmed the engineer Pokemon parody with. He somehow got a ticket to see the graduation. I gave him a hug and thanked him for being there. In true style, he said "no problem bro, I'm glad I could be here." I found my family not to hard, and we took some pictures and went out to lunch. I invited my friend, and he came to say hi to my family, but he wasn't able to stay. My family liked him, and he liked them. At the restaurant he thanked me for the academic help and I thanked him for the "have some fun" help. Another friend to keep contact with.  After lunch we went back to the hotel room and relaxed. I opened up my graduation cards later that evening.

Sunday was the last of the graduation festivities. We went to my student church, me dressed in my graduation get-up. Hey, I spent around $100 on this, so I'm going to get some wear out of it. I got recognized as a graduate as well as other graduates. After church we went to get some final pictures, basically recreating the ones I took as an incoming freshman, but with my cap and gown. After that I drove home, alone. The last thing of mentioning with regards to graduation is how I wore my cap and gown tor my other grandpa who wasn't able to make it to the graduation. He got to put my honors chords on me, and pull me around by them like a pack animal. Just some fun.

Man, this was crazy. It's weird knowing that I won't be going back to school at the end of my little break. Right now I'm working on fining a job, and my prospects seem OK.

Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.