Spring Break 2010: Day 2
The Pennsylvania State University has decided that spring break will fall between March 8th and March 12th (counting only the weekdays) this year. I have decided that I will not be going anywhere. This means I’m spending a week in State College, PA, a town primarily heralded as being the home-away-from-home for the tens of thousands of students studying at PSU. This week, however, most of them are gone, making State College an empty shell. This is my story about that week.
I managed to wake up much earlier today. I just decided to fight through my tiredness and laziness, and I did it. The day looked to be a great one, almost 60 degrees, no chance of rain, a light breeze, and rays of sun dispersed everywhere.
My day however turned out to be dull. That’s why this is a shorter entry. I tidied up my room, did some laundry and waited and waited for the time to play racquetball. And it took a while, a few false starts and a couple of hours later I walked out into the gorgeous outdoors, climbed into the car and we jetted off to Rec Hall. After scoping around we went to the equipment room only to be met with a large sign that read “We have NO Racquets”. Our insistence to simply ignore the sign and use our “grad students who stayed behind to do research” charm with a live person failed.
We got back into the car and took the long road to the Intramural Building, just because of the weather. The campus looks nice even if deserted and lonely. On the other hand, the IM building was packed. We took out two racquets and waited for a court to be vacated. This time was used to practice and get the rules straight (btw, don’t try to read it out to somebody, it’s so complicated, it’s easier if they read it by themselves). Even so, once we hit the courts several realizations were made. Unless you’re really into racquetball, the rules are only there for safety, faulting at every serve seems to be just a bit annoying. With my “ballet” avoidance moves I came to the conclusions that when I play a game, I have 3 major rules in this order: I first try to protect myself, then I try just to hit the ball, and last, and most likely least, try to give it some direction. Which means racquetball today was mostly a workout. A lot of running, some twisting and very little actual gameplay. But it was fun. The only downside was that somewhere between the lockers and the court I lost one of my black beanies, the one my mom always said is less warmer than the other one. Maybe I’ll find it tomorrow, maybe it’s going to end up in the lost and found.
The only other highlight of the day was finding out that some restaurants are understaffed to the point that they stop doing deliveries. So I will be going to bed much earlier tonight, evidenced primarily by the time this article is published. Yeah, today was so uneventful I’ve resorted to meta writing in order to fill this entry.
- end of day 2/5-