Bloghorn

The semester is winding down, spring is in full swing, and I still don’t have a finalized job offer for the summer.

The last day of classes is this Friday, then a week of tests, and the parents are coming on Friday to take me home Saturday. At least the tests aren’t that bad, one on Monday, two on Tuesday, then one on Thursday, all thankfully after 1 PM, so I don’t have to get up early.

As for an internship this summer, I have four irons in the fire, but no definite yes yet. Iron number one is that Bear Stearns finds me a nice non-profit to work at, iron two is that Mount Sinai takes me in for the summer, iron three is a position in ABS at Penn State (which the girlfriend definitely won’t appreciate), and iron four is being a beta tester for some video game company in the NYC area. All of these jobs have my resume, seem interested, and would be a good experience, but none have gotten back to me yet.

I’ve also started getting the ball rolling for getting a chapter of the Collegiate Society of America started on campus. The lack of good old fashioned parliamentary debate is one of the things I missed in the transition from high school to college, and Model UN is way too geeky for me. I’ve contacted a few professors who might be interested, and I’ll see where it goes from there.

The campus looks really good too. Snapped a few shots with my phone.

I voted this afternoon for the first time in Pennsylvania. The polling place was in the HUB, so on top of the already packed lunch crowd, a string of poster holding politicians lined the path, handing out leaflets and recommending themselves for their position of choice.

Inside the polling place were 3 different setups, one for each district within the University Park campus. Yes, there’s more than one. The line for the East Halls district was practically out the door, but the West Halls line was nonexistent. I just walked up, signed my name, and went to the voting machines.

My experience in the New Rochelle voting system has led me to distrust mechanical voting machines in general, but electronic voting without a paper ballot (as these were ) made me just as uncomfortable. The interface was easy to understand, at least.

The voting machine interface

I met Ted on the way out, stumping for Obama with the rest of his Obamatrons. Seems there’s a new club on campus involving video games and politics that needs a president, and he thinks I’m up for it. I’ll have to ask him about it later. SRA497A this afternoon, then I finally get to relax for a while.

Found out on Tuesday that Bear Stearns isn’t honoring all the commitments after all. Well, they’re trying to find alternate placement for all the interns, but I don’t think I’ll come close to the job I had at BSC anywhere they offer. So I’m back to looking for an internship, and if I can get into the network security group over at Mt. Sinai, it won’t be a total loss.

In other news, I lost the IST Interest House elections. By 10 votes. To a boy (“man” is reserved for those who deserve some semblance of respect) whose campaign was essentially “vote for me because Foghorn sucked and here’s what he did wrong,” then proceeded to interrupt my campaign speech multiple times. I don’t care what your qualifications are, if you can’t even show your opponent the common courtesy of being quiet and listening to his speech, you don’t deserve the office. I was considering accepting Vice President, but the thought of working with that arrogant, condescending liar is way too unpleasant.

After talking with a few friends, I’ve decided to try to start that debate club at Penn State, a chapter of the CSA. No, not “thuh South will rise again!” CSA, the Collegiate Society of America, JSA’s answer to bored college debaters. With a little work, I’m sure it’ll be a hit.

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