What animal would you be?

So yesterday at work, my co-workers and I were discussing what animal we would like to be if we suddenly turned into one. I chose a bear, because bears are really badass and do whatever they want. They eat just about everything we eat, and bears sleep for a long ass time. Hibernation is cool! I mean, you're the king of the forest, roaming around, and nothing fucks with you because you're the baddest man in Revere. You have "jack-chop" like claws, enormous strength, the ability to climb trees, scavenge and hunt, and eat honey and berries. What a life!
There are some other animals that I thought would be cool, but if reincarnation is what happens after you die, which would be SICK, I would chose a bear. Now, if reincarnation was dying from this human life and coming back as an animal, with all your human intelligence and consciousness, with no possibility of becoming a human and you knew that you had to become an animal, who would you chose? I'd like to see some interesting choices and what you believe the perks of becoming that animal would be... like becoming a bird and flying. Let's hear it!
Sean you first!!!!

Teachers Say the Darn'dest things.

So today in Gen. Chem lecture, my professor, who's name rhymes with yoda, said VERY wise words. We were discussing acids, and in particularly hyrdofluoric acid (HF), because we were on the topic if electronegativity. Anyways, HF is very acidic, and will react with glass, and even your skin. He said...."If you get HF on your hand it will not hurt, but it will go through your skin and into your tissues and react with your bones. And if this happens then it is too late to wash it off, but all you can do it just cry and lose your fingers" This was all said as he was drawing a diagram of getting HF on your hands.
Thank you Master Noda.

This American Life

This American Life, is a radio show on 90.9 WBUR NPR that broadcasts every Sunday afternoon. Usually it has three or more different stories all based on the same topic. They have a podcast that you can subscribe for free and you get a new episode every Sunday. I myself, am a follower and I love listening to it every Sunday. One episode was about babysitters and the odd events that some people have experienced. One babysitter convinced his brothers that he turned into a werewolf every time their parents went out, and it continued for three years. CRAZY. Check this out on iTunes, it's awesome to listen to.
Let me know if you hear any good stories, or you would like to chat about the episodes you have heard... comment!
Sean O'Leary, I LOVE YOU, you're my hero.

Shitty Professors

There have been a lot of shitty professors since my two years at college, and that is not a long time at all. One shitty professor talks about himself. I had him last year for Communications 130. I won't say his name because that's embarrassing. He would also say he's working on this or that but mostly he just sucked because he wouldn't teach, just talk about himself. He once told me that he invented non-alcoholic hand sanitizer for alcoholics because he didn't think it was fair. He always spoke about his lovely girlfriends he's had and often showed us pictures. These women were beautiful, but I can't fathom how he even claimed he knew them because they wouldn't date a man of his characteristics. He looked like the principle from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. His name was Ed Rooney. I spoke to him once a week before our test in the course saying that none of us know anything and we feel that we haven't learned anything because all he does is talk about himself rather than teach.
I got an A in the course... I knew the material but I feel i left a good impact on him by saying that.

Other shitty teachers are ones that read shit in lecture. They often show powerpoints and recite the material to you, which isn't teaching, it's reading. One in particular has given powerpoint lectures that are HUGE, about 150+ every class. How do we learn all this shit? Not from him because he doesn't teach it! I was told by him, to study by memorizing because it's the best way. Seriously, I knew that already, I would rather learn things instead of memorizing because that way you can apply the knowledge instead of drawing from memory. With knowledge you can deduce things that don't make sense if you don't know the exact answer.
Post some comments about other shitty things your professors have done... I'd like to hear it.

Climbing

Climbing is a sport of endurance, challenging problems and a whole lot of fun! There are a couple types of climbing. One is bouldering, my personal favorite, in which you climb short, challenging problems. There is also top roping, sport climbing, and a bunch of other stuff!
I go to climbing gyms alot, but outdoor climbing is always better. If you want to start climbing and you go to Bridgewater State, come to ECC at 6:00 on Wednesdays and Fridays! We meet in the foyer and tickets cost 5 dollars for a member, 7 for non-members, and 15 dollars for a membership, which gets you a t-shirt! First time climbers climb for 5 dollars!
Come on down if you're interested! We typically go to a gym in New Bedford called Carabiners.
Ask if you have any questions about joining us!

Driving

I've driven many places, the furthest is probably New York for a climbing trip, which was this summer, and round trip ended up being well over 700 miles. I've been everywhere in New England, and a few other states, and most places driven to are a long trip, mostly over an hour. It can be fun or really shitty, many factors go into play with driving, such as weather, traffic conditions, quality of surrounding drivers and location. No one likes driving through the city, and if you do you're fucked. I like the country side, rolling hills, plenty of landscape to enjoy. In New Paltz, New York, a bunch of us were going for climbing so the landscape was excellent because there were mountains every where. It looked really nice. The country side is more interesting because no one else is really around to get in the way or bother you, it's mostly vacant areas that are uninhabited for miles, it's pretty neat. Above is my jeep that we took to New York, and judging by the extra cargo strapped to the roof, we were pretty jam packed inside. The long drives are also fun because if you have a great DJ, like my co-pilot that trip, GMJ, then you have a nice motivating sound track set up. Some bands and songs are better to drive to than others, like No Scrubs by TLC, or Dispatch is all great, and that song by SIV that I'm, not sure what the name is.

This is a picture that was right off the road on a mountain in New York, a beautiful site, and great place to drive through.

Machias Canoe Trip, Hilarity Ensues

I’ve had some pretty great camping experiences; one was canoeing the East Machias River, which is 42 miles long. My friends and I, four of us total completed in 18 hours, roughly. We fucking beasted this thing, absolutely insanity.

Now getting there was the hardest part, we had no fucking clue where this first lake was. It is called Pocamoonshine Lake, and it was the beginning of the East Machias River. We were in the boonies of Maine, way up near Canada, moose country if you will, which is also pretty disappointing, because we didn’t see any moose. Anyways, we get on this dirt trail, after dropping my friends car off at the end of the river, and a 30 minute drive to where we thought the river was supposed to begin. We were in the right vicinity of the lake, we just had no idea what path to go down, but we ended up going too far at one point so we turned around, and went through this HUGE fucking puddle, which was probably about the size of the Mediterranean Sea, only just a lot smaller. As going through it we must of hit a sharp rock because my friends Tahoe got a nice flat, and we drove it for a bit probably a few minutes before we heard the sound a flat makes when flopping against the ground. So we pull over, and naturally, us being men we say we can fix this shit. How wrong we were to assume that, because my friends tire iron sucked balls, and we couldn’t get enough torque on the friggen thing. So after 30 minutes of trying, I being the only one with AAA, called the number on the card to get someone to come to where we were. Did we actually know? Not at all, so we made an “educated” high school graduate guess, the AAA guy was also going to take like 2 hours to get to us. After about an hour of waiting my friend and I made a fire for fun, and we were collecting rocks or something, and the other two went running toward the road, and a white pickup truck drove by. Being in Maine these people were drinking and driving and were on their way to a party, which was pretty cool. HA. So they asked if we wanted help and we said yes, because we knew they probably had better tools, which they did. So they fixed our damn flat, and my friends came back from running, in another white pickup. AAA still didn’t dome so we had to call that guy who had like 80 miles to drive and was about an hour and a half into it, we felt bad but we were too pumped to order an Edible Arrangement for his half ass effort.

These kids that helped us also showed us the way to the lake we were looking for, pretty neat. We then ate dinner and slept, very uncomfortably, and set out in the morning. We didn’t paddle much the first day and we set up camp right before some nice rapids.

That night got pretty cold, and we had to move the tent we set up to a different location because one of my friends deemed it unsafe, which it was but still we moved it to a shitty uncomfortable spot, and I nosed the best spot but someone else took it.

We were sitting by a well made fire after dinner, and my buddy, we’ll call him Joe, said he was a little itchy. I noticed a spot behind his ear, and he said he was getting more and more itchy. Suddenly, spots begin to spread throughout his body and create a very large, no area missed rash on his skin. We told him to go to sleep and take some Benadryl, which my mother INSISTED we take just in case something happens. I’m so glad we did bring it because we thought he was near death. So he slept for a few hours in the tent, and this was probably around 5 o’clock or so...  and two of my friends and I decided it would be a good idea to explore, this, however, was a terrible idea.

We had heard the road nearby, and we wanted to find it, and we did. The problem was that we had no idea how to get back to where we left Joe, who was sleeping in the tent with some weird skin rash. We took forever to find our way back to the river and then to hike back to the tent.

When we did get back we just hung out by the fire and Joe woke up, pretty discombobulated, and that’s right around when we all decided to get some rest for the following morning.

The next day we woke up pretty early, around 5AM, only to find one of our friends sleeping with the tent bag around his body because he didn’t bring a sleeping bag. He forgot one. It got pretty cold that night, right around 40 degrees. Idiot, but hilarious.

We began canoeing after packing up camp and we paddled for a while that day. We went through a lot of rapids and crossed a lot of lakes. One lake and river path was like canoeing in a wind tunnel, we paddled so hard and got nearly nowhere because of how intense the wind was.

We finally finished the river, and got to my friend’s car. Two friends took my friends car to get the truck so we could pack up and head home. We ate McDonalds, which was really good at the time, and then we went home, on a very long drive, which took roughly 7 hours. We got home at 2AM and I had my first day of work the next day.

Awesome trip, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.