So, not terribly much has went on since Saturday night after my previous post. However, this is not entirely a bad thing consider all the rain and wind. On Saturday night, after watching a movie and relaxing for a while, a bunch of us played cards in the common room of Blanche, ground floor until 3:00 or so in the morning. We were playing Uno and changing around the rules periodically to make it more fun. For example, in one round, everyone started with three cards. It actually made it a lot harder because you were so limited early in the game that people had to keep drawing. It was interesting to see how different slight changes in the game made the entire flow of the rounds different.

On Sunday, the weather was okay for the majority of day – it drizzled a few times but overall it was a nice day. It did, however, start to get rainier into the night and also much colder. For the majority of the day, Phil, Dan, Lisa, Stefan, and I relaxed, played video games, and just generally enjoyed ourselves. I did not know Stefan very well, but it has been nice getting to know him better over the span of the weekend while he was visiting friends. Stefan is also a student here, however, he is taking this semester off before returning in the spring. It was also quite amusing to watch all day as people anxiously waited to see if classes were going to be cancelled and the general cheer caused by what is essentially a rain day today. A large number of other schools officially declared that they were closing before us, so I personally just assumed that we would also eventually cancel classes for the day, and eventually the school did make the announcement and people were quite pleased. Apparently, no one felt like braving a hurricane to go to class.

Classes were indeed cancelled today because of the weather caused by Hurricane Sandy. It is definitely not as bad as it could have been, but it is very cold and wet and the wind has spiked throughout the day. Most of today was spent on relaxing with friends because classes were cancelled – for example, Phil, Dan, Lisa, Probie, and I all watched Snow White and the Huntsman early in the evening before braving the weather to determine what dinner would be. I personally stayed in my apartment because I had no interest in being cold and wet outside and I have a kitchen. After dinner, Phil and I sat down to work on homework – and Dan went back to Blanche for the same purpose. Eventually Lisa also rejoined Phil and I, and are now having a small homework party until my conversational hour at 9:00 PM. Once my conversational hour is over, I intend to work on homework for a little longer and then watch movies with Lisa and Phil until the early hours of the morning since classes were already cancelled for tomorrow because of flooding and weather concerns.

With the hurricane approaching it is interesting to see how a college prepares for such a situation. So far classes have not been cancelled (although we have heard they are in several areas). McDaniel’s news team is live blogging the storm so that students can follow along. There are also posts on facebook updating on the current status of the weather.

One great thing McDaniel has for weather conditions is the news alert. They send a text any time there is something the students should be notified of. This worked well last year when students had a potential tornado warning. All students were contacted swiftly and able to move to a safe location on campus.

Though I was not on campus for the tornado warning I also heard that campus safety officers went through the buildings warning students to find safe shelter. It is reassuring to know that we are looked after in case of emergency. It is debatable what damage the storm will cause, but McDaniel is taking steps to protect the student body. I overheard campus workers discussing preparations for the storm last week, so I know there has been a lot of advanced planning. Though I am hoping for cancelled class, I am not worried for my safety.

So, I have actually had a really good week. Even though I have been recovering still, I am feeling much better and have been able to be up and about more. Anime Club, which meets on Thursday at 8:00, this week was a lot of fun and we finally decided on our t-shirt designs and most of the club wants to buy one once we order them. We watched our running series as well as two other shows and it was a really nice relaxing way to end my week since I do not have any classes on Friday. All of the officers also went to the Station after the meeting and we got a lot of details worked out for our upcoming auction. It was productive, but there were also several new people at the Station doing Karaoke who were actually really good, so we had a lot of fun.

On Friday, I had some make up work to do, but my evening was spent relaxing with friends. Phil and I went to see The Dark Knight Rises in Decker Auditorium. One nice thing about McDaniel is that they show a relatively new movie on campus at least every other week for free. It is a really nice way to hang out with friends or to spend a date night with your significant other and there were a lot of people at the 7:00 showing last night. Everyone there cheered at the end of the movie because it was really good and they seemed to have a really good time. I really liked the movie and will definitely think about buying it sometime soon.

Today, I spent a lot of the day doing homework, however that is primarily because tonight a bunch of us are going to the Carroll Arts Center to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show and to hang out. We are going with a very diverse group of friends so it will be interesting to see how everyone likes the movie and how they react to its eccentricities. I am going with Dan, Lisa, Phil, and several other friends – some of them have seen it before and some have not. The Carroll Arts Center shows Rocky Horror once a year and it was a lot of fun last year and I expect it will be just as much fun this time around.