Boys' State

Hey Gang!

Even during the summer, there's always things going on here at USC! There are tons of summer camps for highschoolers. There's one in particular that has big rallies in the field right outside my window. I can hear them yelling and cheering and having a grand old time in my room and in the kitchen. At first, I thought it was a riot on television! ;D Despite what the picture looks like, there are a TON of guys on the field -- it extends waaaay to the left and right of the trees, and that field is bigger than a normal one for some reason.

Today was my first official day on the T2BN: Text to Bayesian Networks project. It looks really challenging! I'm hoping that my partner and I can come up with something substantive in the two months we have to work on it.

Got to go to Bethany Chapel here in Columbia again tonight. Afterwards, I went over to the School of Music and explored a bit. They have posters for a Madrigal group, but I don't think they're meeting during the summer. I was really tempted to call the Summer choir leader, but they started practicing at the end of May, and one of their performances is on a Sunday afternoon when I would prefer to be home in Augusta. The practice rooms are nice as far as I can tell -- they all have locks and I could only get into ones that people didn't completely close the doors to. ;D I wonder if this is going to be a good, consistent way to find a place to practice.

On a personal level, I'm kinda down about some things going on right now so I feel a bit sapped. For those moments when you are feeling apathetic, go over and visit ApathyOnline. It's a news site run by a college friend of mine. The thrust of the site is to show people some of the outrageous things happening in our country (and government) today in an attempt to arouse people out of their apathy and into the voting booth... or into action-oriented conversation with others. It's really a good idea.

Get up and do something!