The Sunbury Ice Rink

The scariest thing I did this week was on Saturday, when we went to the Sunbury Ice Rink and I learned how to ice skate.

The Sunbury Ice Rink is just a twenty minute drive up the river from Susquehanna. The rink is where Susquehanna, Bucknell, and Bloomsburg Universities all play their hockey games. The place is a little tricky to find (we had to stop and ask directions), but it’s worth the search. Altogether admission and skate renting will only set you back $5.

Next to the big fireplace outside the rink, Holly showed me how to lace up my skates. Then she talked me into standing up on those two thin little blades, and she lead me out to the ice.

After much wobbling, slipping, near-falling, and death-gripping of Holly’s hand, I finally started to get the hang of it. Soon I found myself passing the little girl in the pink coat who’d been lapping me all night.

Eventually I lost track of how many times I’d passed her, and ice skating shifted from kind of scary to really fun. I could let go Holly’s hand and move away from the wall. I could go faster. I could watch Kelly skate backwards around the rink or Andrew wildly flapping his arms to regain his balance as he went around the turn. I could enjoy the way my breath came out in little clouds and listen to the local radio station’s eighties after eight that the rink was pumping through the speakers. I could skate.

And I didn’t fall once all night. (I swear!)

Me, braving the ice rink.

"Faculty Lounge" Rocks Trax

I don't think it's at just any university where you can go out on a Friday night, shoot pool, and listen to your girlfriend's history professor belt out "Highway to Hell" while your literature professor backs him up on the guitar.

At Susquehanna, you can.

Saturday night we walked over the railroad crossing to Trax, Susquehanna's on-campus student-run night club.  Trax holds all sorts of events throughout the semester, including concerts, dances formal and informal, casino nights, wine tastings, even a gaming convention.  What drew my friends and I out on this cold Friday night was the chance to hear Faculty Lounge play a set.

It turns out that Dr. Roth is not only an expert on literary theory, he's also a great guitarist.

The band is made up of Dr. Long, my music tech prof, on the drums; Dr. Roth, my lit prof, on guitar; Dr. Winegar, one of SU's deans, on bass; and Dr. Imhoof, Holly's European history professor, on keyboard and vocals. 

The band played a good mix of original stuff and solid covers, including "Hey Ya."  After Dr. Imhoof jumped off the stage and did a lap around the inside of the building, he closed the set by singing "Now I'm a Believer" – in German.

This was definitely worth braving the cold.

Listen to Faculty Lounge.
More on Trax.
More on Faculty Lounge.

Dante's Inferno

The room was hot but silent as Dr. Giuseppe Mazzotta began to read from Canto 1:

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;

But of the good to treat, which there I found,

Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

Dr. Giuseppe Mazzotta, the Sterling Professor of Humanities for Italian at Yale University, visited campus last Thursday to deliver a lecture on the role education plays in Dante's Inferno.

I've never seen Isaacs Auditorium so full. They had to bring out extra chairs just to fit everyone in, and Dr. Mazzotta did not disappoint.  This was honestly the best lecture I've ever attended.

Admittedly, I am a creative write/religion double major and a fan of the Comedia, so I may have a bias here, but it was more than just interesting.  For Dr. Mazzotta, Dante isn't just an area of expertise.  Dante is also his passion.  You could hear it in his voice and see it in his animated hand gestures.

Dr. Mazzotta said that the Commedia is a journey of both mind and body, that for Dante simply knowing what justice is is not enough to make a person just.  The path up to the top of Mt. Purgatory begins with the road down into Hell.  The journey of conversion involves both intellect and passion.

Intellect and passion.  I think that's what made Dr. Mazzotta's lecture so outstanding.  Not only did he know Dante inside and out, he had such a strong passion for Dante that this 700-year-old poem suddenly seemed relevant to our lives today.

When President Lemons cut off the questions from the audience and thanked Dr. Mazzotta for coming, I thought, wow, it's over already?  Then I checked my cell phone and saw that an hour and a half had just flown by.

Thanksgiving Dinner

The Thursday before Thanksgiving Break is one of the best days of the year at Susquehanna University. Students pack into the Everett Dining Room for a delicious turkey dinner served by the faculty and staff of the university.

After Chaplain Radecke's blessing and President Lemons' annual Thanksgiving toast, everybody takes a gulp of sparkling cider. Then we all twist around to watch our professors carrying out steaming trays of food.

This year Dr. Klotz, my psychology professor, carved the turkey while the eight of us started in on our corn, greens, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Then, after we'd cleaned our plates, my Italian professor, Dr. Rodgers, served us slices of pumpkin pie.

Warm is the word I'd use to describe the whole evening. The sun's setting earlier and earlier now. It's already dark outside, dark and winter cold, but here we are, packed into the Everett Dining Room, sporting sweaters and button-down shirts, stuffed with good food, surrounded by our professors and our closest friends. It’s the best.

The Sound of Music at Susquehanna

Last Saturday at Susquehanna, the hills were alive with the sound of music.  Okay, not literally, but this past weekend the theatre department did put on The Sound of Music.

Every fall the theatre department teams up with the music department to put on a musical for family weekend.  In past years they've put on shows like Hello, Dolly!, Chicago, and West Side Story.

This year, because they moved the show from the Weber Chapel Auditorium, which seasts 1,500, to the much smaller Degenstein Theater, the theatre department doubled the number of shows, performing during family weekend and during homecoming.

Which was great for me because my younger sister was busy with marching band stuff during family weekend but was free during homecoming weekend.  So after my friends and I saw the Brian Regan show, we squeezed her into Holly's car and brought her back with us.  My sister's involved with drama club at school, and I thought she'd really enjoy the play.

The theatre department did not disappoint.  The student who played Mother Abbess really nailed her part, and of course the student cast to play Maria was excellent.  Four of the six Von Trapp children in the show were played by actual children, the sons and daughters of university faculty and staff.  The kids all did an amazing job.

What I thought was best about the play was the musicianship in the pit orchestra.  The music was fantastic.

The whole production was really professional.  I think it really made my sister's visit a memorable experience.

More on Susquehanna's Theatre Department

Brian Regan: Stand-Up Comedy at Shippensburg University

Friday after class four of us piled into Holly's car, and we took 81 South to Shippensburg University.  Shippensburg is usually about an hour and half drive from Susquehanna, but the trip was longer for us because we drove fifteen minutes past Shippensburg to my hometown, Chambersburg, where we squeezed my friend Jimmy into the car and grabbed some Tex-Mex food from Moe's Southwestern Grill.

Then we took 81 North up to the Luhrs Center at Shippensburg University for the main event: stand-up comedian Brian Regan.

Brian Regan has appeared on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien and "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson."  Regan has had two Comedy Central specials, and he recently made his twentieth appearance on the "The Late Show with David Letterman."  Tickets for Brian Regan's show at the Luhrs Center went on sale online at 11:00 AM and were sold out by half past noon—and Luhrs Center seats 1,500.

We were lucky enough to get five great seats in the front center section of the theater.  That was the part I couldn't get over—we were only about twenty yards away from him.  I've been listening to Brian Regan's albums since I was in high school, and there he was, right in front of me.

And his act was hillarious.  I don't think I could convey to you in words how funny he is.  Instead of listening to me give you his jokes secondhand, you should just see him for yourself:

As we headed back out to the parking lot, my face was sore from smiling so much.

More on the Luhrs Center
More on Brian Regan

Pumpkin Carving with Intervarsity

Normally when a bunch of Susquehanna students from Intervarsity Christian Fellowship get together, the meeting involves a laid-back contemporary worship service or an in-depth look at a passage from the Bible.

But last Friday, that wasn't the case at all.  Last Friday involved vegetable and knives.  Intervarsity spent the night before Halloween carving pumpkins down in the common room of West Village G.

See for yourself:

Hershey Hockey Game

I have yet to see the Hershey Bears win a game.

The game started out all right. The Binghamton Senators scored two goals early in the first period, but the Bears answered with two goals of their own. Then Senators scored again early in the second period and then once more early in the final period. The Bears pulled their goalie to try to make a comeback, but Senators slip past them and scored one more, clinching the game 5-2.

You can’t put all the blame on the Bears, though. They’ve been having a pretty good season this year, and last year they even won the Calder Cup, the American Hockey League equivalent to the Stanley Cup. The Senators’ goalie was phenomenal. The Bears just couldn’t get enough shots past him.

The Senator's goalie, Andy Chiodo, in action.

It was still a great night though. Hershey, Pennsylvania is only an hour’s drive from campus. Holly’s car bounded through deep puddles on Chocolate Avenue while billboards welcomed us to “The Sweetest Place on Earth.” The town smelled like roasted peanuts as we passed the Hershey Factory on our way to pick-up Megan, a friend of ours from Hershey. We ate lunch at a place called Houlihan’s, in the shadow of the Kissing Tower and the Great Bear rollercoaster.

The game, while not as exciting as it could have been, was still full of all those crazy spectacles you’d expect at an amateur-league sporting event: The cameras panned the crowd looking for the Almond Joy “Nut of the Game,” a small blimp circled the arena and sprinkled cash on the crowd, t-shirts tossed into the stands by Coco the Bear.

During the Kit-Kat "Break" between the first and second periods, they brought two women out to center ice dressed in inflatable sumo suits so we could watch them bump into each other.

During the second break, one lucky fan won $1,000 for hitting a puck through a bean-bag sized opening placed in front of the goal. Then there was the Hershey's Kiss Cam, the "Dish of the Game" cooking segment played up on the jumbotron (we learned how to make corn pudding), and a guest appearance from the Red Robin mascot for a gift card giveaway.  Somebody even won a free oil change.

Like the Bears, Holly, Megan, and I didn't win anything ourselves, but the tickets were only $22.  It was a great way to spend a Saturday.

More about Hershey, PA
More about the Hershey Bears

Driving down Chocolate Avenue, note the Kiss-shaped streetlights

The Hershey  Chocolate Factory

Houlihan's on Chocolate Avenue

Houlihan's on Chocolate Avenue

The Giant Center, home of the Hershey Bears

Late Night Pancakes

There is nothing fun about studying for midterm exams.  But when you do find yourself stranded in the middle of midterm week, there’s something you can turn to for relief: pancakes.

Every semester during midterm week, Susquehanna’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity sets up an electric skillet in the lower level of the campus center, and from 8 PM to midnight, they cook pancakes.

"People just come right up to us,” Kenny, one of the Habitat volunteers, told me as my pancakes sizzled.  According to Kenny, the pancake sale relies primarily on word-of-mouth advertising around campus.

But the real secret to Habitat’s success has to be the warm smell of freshly made pancakes. The scent hits your nose as soon as you walk through the door. You can’t escape it. The campus center is filled with with that delicious smell. It’s no surprise Habitat sells about a hundred pancakes a night.

It’s only a dollar for two pancakes, and for fifty cents more, they’ll add chocolate chips to the batter. Every sale brings Habitat one step closer to building another house here in Selinsgrove. The money also helps supports the Collegiate Challenge, a spring break trip that puts students to work building houses for low-income families.

It’s a win-win situation.

88.9 WQSU-FM "The Pulse"

“You don’t have to keep backing up,” Kristen—that is, DJ K-Ri—tells me.

Sitting in a swivel chair behind the glowing mixing board in the WQSU control room has me feeling a little jumpy, but Kristen seems confident enough.

WQSU-FM is the 12,000-watt radio station in Susquehanna's campus center. The station broadcasts FM music and talk to places as far away as Bloomsburg and Williamsport and also streams its audio online.  I’ve walked past the place plenty of times—it’s got big glass windows that let you look in on the DJ as you walk by—but I’ve never been inside before.

The neon-blue clock in the corner is a reminder that everything has to be perfectly timed out. At the top of the hour, Kristen plays the station ID then the news report—which lasts exactly three minutes—before she goes on the air and gives the weather forecast.

Kristen is a creative writing/religion double major.  Her shifts at the station count as practicum for her broadcasting minor, but the station isn't reserved for communications students. The mic is open to any would-be DJs on campus.

After Kristen puts on “Poison” by Alice Cooper, she pulls off her headphones and turns to me. “Okay, we can talk now.”  The music plays softly through speakers that hang over our heads.

“So how do you make sure the news goes on right at 4:00?”

She smiles, nodding toward the paper and pencil sitting in front of her. “I use math.”

Once the music’s playing, things become more relaxed.  Kristen's friends pop in and out of the station, plopping down on the couch to talk to her for a few mintues before heading out again. 

Kristen mostly fills her two-hour shifts with contemporary, classic, and alternative rock with an occasional request mixed in. The station has two computers loaded with music: 15,000 songs on the one and another 18,000 on the other!

Half way through the Audio Slave track, a small strobe light above the telephone announces a call-in request. Kristen shakes her head as she hangs up the phone.  "I hate Bob Dylan," she says, but she cues up “Isis” anyway on the second Mac.  Bob Dylan is a step up from last week when she got a request for "Total Eclipse of the Heart." 

"Everyone walking by was looking at me like 'What are you doing?' and the song lasts like seven minutes."  Kristen shakes her head.  "It was awful."

Then as the Audio Slave song finishes up, she turns to the mixing board and fades the first computer out as she fades the second computer in.  A seamless transition.

Listen to WQSU-FM online.

More about WQSU.

Dave Matthews Concert

On the phone, Holly carefully explained it to her grandfather: yes, we’re going to a concert on a school night, but no, we’re not going to cut class. We finished all our homework ahead of time. We’re good kids.

Once Jimmy – a friend of mine from back home – got on campus, we threw his overnight stuff in my room, grabbed some dinner at Red Robin, and then the three of us headed out.

The Toyota Pavilion on Montage Mountain, a concert venue just outside Scranton, is about an hour and a half drive from Selinsgrove, east on I-80, north on I-81. We knew we were in for a long night, but we didn’t care. That’s a small sacrifice for a Dave Matthews Band concert.

The show was phenomenal. Dave’s violinist took several extended solos. They were incredible. He’s an amazing musician, but, then, you could say the same for any member of the band—the lead guitarist, the trumpeter, the saxophonist, even the bass player.

The drummer is the most fun to watch, though. He’s always smiling like he’s got the best job in the world. He chewed gum and popped bubbles throughout the show.

The band played for two hours straight and then came back out and covered “All Along the Watchtower” with some “Stairway to Heaven” thrown in for their encore.

It was an incredible night.

Floating Down the Susquehanna River

Saturday was supposed to be Fall Frenzy at SU (and, technically, it was), but really it was too blue-skied, warm, and sunny to be anything other than one of the few remaining days of the summer. My girlfriend, convinced that this was not a day to be wasted, suggested we go tubing.

For two dollars apiece, you can rent big black inner tubes from the Info Desk in Deg. Before I knew what was going, Holly had borrowed $12 out of my wallet and we were trying to figure out how to squeeze six inner tubes and six people into two cars.

We dropped Corinne’s car off on the Isle of Que, then drove the two other cars we’d loaded with inner tubes upstream to the Selinsgrove boat dock. Once everyone’s car keys were safely fastened to the strap of Corinne’s swimsuit, we boarded our vessels ("Jodi," "Hobut," "Bubba II," "Jay," and "Doughnut") and took to the water.

We spent the next two hours drifting down stream, warmed by the sun and cooled by the water, watching the railroad trussles in the distances slowly grow larger as dragonflies skimmed the surface of the river. Very chill.

When the railroad tracks finally passed over our heads, it was time to make a frantic, awkward-inner-tube paddle back to the Isle of Que so we wouldn’t float past Corrinne’s car, our ride home.