Cory's Blog

So the first full week of classes has come and gone. We have all had the chance to get a feel for what we think our semester will shape up to be. We have, of course, enjoyed the “first week back” festivities about campus. However, this “grace period” as I like to call it ends now with the first week being over and done with and the rest of the semester ahead of us.

You may be wondering what the end of the “grace period” really means for us as students. Well, first and foremost the professors who have been taking it a little easy on us as we got settled in and used to their polices and styles will be turning up the dial next week on their lectures to make up for lost time caused by taking classes a little bit easier in the first week. They may also start pulling a few things out of their “bag o’ tricks” so to speak and hit us with some unusual quizzes, unexpected material or any number of other surprises. While it may seem unfair or harsh to us, after a week of dusting off the rust of summer, it is time to get back into the full swing of things.

Although this harsh return may seem a little bit unnerving, I am quite used to it, seeing as how this is my FOURTH year here and all! It just means that I have to put down the “Welcome Back Ice Cream, Pizza (or any other welcome back treat for that matter)” and pick up my notebook and kick myself into a higher gear. I mean, I have been “getting back into the swing of things” for a week and a half now, so I should be all set to take whatever those pharmacy school professors can dish out at me.

Although seeing the “Grace Period” drift off into the sunset like so many a summer day is not the most fun experience in the world, I guess that we all are here at “school” for a reason, so I best be getting back to what I came here to do. So it is off to the library, or the Bookstore, or wherever else I can find a comfy place to study so that when test time comes, I can show some that I have broken free of the “Grace Period” and can show some “grace under pressure” on their exams! Take care!

Posted by Cory at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think most of us are aware of the term “15 minutes of fame”. Be it a reality star, a sports hero, or just a normal guy making it onto the evening news being interviewed about “something or other”, everyone is supposed to get their “15 minutes”. Personally, I thought I had already had my own 15 minutes so far in my 21 and a half-ish years. From a couple of shots on the local sports show in high school, to making it on local Columbia TV freshman year because of it being my “first game” (and because my friend Jenna is a Public Relations major that really knows how to make stuff happen!) I have had my moments in the sun.

I guess for me , those aren’t quite enough moments because I really like sunshine, and basking in its warm glow of “fame.” Lucky for me on Thursday, our Gamecock football squad was taking on NC State in the first game of the year on ESPN, and those fine folks from Bristol, CT have a way of getting rowdy fans on TV. So, with our Gamecocks up 34-0 just a few seconds away from victory (47 to be exact) in the 4th quarter, I noticed a cameraman standing in the aisle right next to me. I didn’t think too much of it, I mean he could have been working for the school, his camera could have been off, the possibilities are literally endless!

As I said, I didn’t think too much of it, until few seconds later when he had left and I received a text message from a friend saying “Cory, I just saw you on ESPN!” Alas, I had arrived! It was time for a few more seconds to tick on my 15 minutes of fame! I immediately called home to ask if Mom and Dad had seen their baby boy’s face plastered all over national TV, and they had! Although they wanted to know why they didn’t receive a shout out. They had even recorded the game so as to preserve my moment of fame!

Perhaps you saw me at home too, check out the :47 second mark in the 4th quarter. I have on a backwards hat, a garnet Under Armour shirt, and a grin! Needless to say this made my night, that and the fact that we took care of the Wolfpack pretty handily! Anyways, I have to go, my phone’s ringing, and I am pretty sure it’s my agent. Since my spot on TV, the offers from Hollywood have been non-stop! Take care!

Posted by Cory at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ah yes, getting back to school. I have spoken of the hospitality of the fine folks such as myself who were at the service of the incoming freshman, breaking our backs and our Saturday plans mind you, to help them get settled, moved in, and feel welcome. There was the convocation, the first year reading experience, and several other back to school events that made students from freshman to even fourth year pharmacy students feel welcome and happy to be back here at Carolina. However, I think there were a few people who didn’t get the “welcome back” memo.

Don’t get me wrong. These are some pretty good people (don’t you just love those descriptive adjectives!) that I speak of, but for some reason they didn’t make me feel very welcome at all. I suppose I should just go ahead and put this little blog into some context that you have a chance of actually understanding.

Let us travel back to last spring. The year was 2008. The month was March/April”ish”. It was my third year of college, and I was taking advantage of the fantastic intramural program we have here. I was doing my best to make the trip up the racquetball “ladder”. My athletic journey was going well. So well in fact that I was in the semifinals of the racquetball ladder where I was pitted against Stoyan, a graduate student from Bulgaria. He stood between myself and the finals, and I was not going to yield. After a couple of quick sets, I was the winner and in the finals!

Waiting for me there was my friend Charlie, who had taken the sport a mere year before in the spring of 2007. Seeing him in the finals just a year after beginning playing showed he obviously came a long way from when we first started playing. So far in fact that he beat me in the finals…but that’s just boring details. That’s the past and who wants to dredge that up.

Back to this week when I met Charlie and Stoyan for my “rude welcome back.” I had not had the chance to play any racquetball since I left Arizona back in the beginning of June, and despite continuing to work out over the summer, I was definitely NOT in racquetball shape. Any doubts I may have had were quickly erased by a 15-3 thrashing at the hands of good ol’ Charlie. He had me running all over the court, and by the time I was done, I was actually a little embarrassed and very happy to be over with our first match.

Perhaps Stoyan, the one who I had actually BEAT in the playoffs would be an easier match. He asked how my first match with Charlie had gone, to which I replied, “He embarrassed me.” Stoyan simply said, “I’d like to do the same.” I think a little revenge was on his mind. Anyways, he got his “revenge” to the tune of a 15-4 shellacking at my expense. By the end of the matches, I was tired, sore, and downright frustrated at the prospect of a semester of racquetball like this!

Not to worry though sports fans! After my short walk back across the Assembly Street bridge to my apartment, I realized that they had been playing all summer while I had had no practice until a couple of days prior to our matches. I also looked back and realized the kind of player I know I am when I am in “shape.” So, I think I will take it a match at a time, remain calm, and maybe work in a lot of extra practice when I can! Until next time, I will try and get a little bit nicer welcome from the other people I haven’t seen all summer. Take care!

Posted by Cory at 05:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday was a day of trips for me. It was a trip down memory lane. It was also several trips up and down the vertical staircase of the Capstone Residence Hall. You see, as a member of my honor society, we help with the chaos that is “Move In Day,” or the day that everyone moves into their residence hall. The thing is, I have helped out with move in day now for three years and have been a part of move in day for four! (Considering my freshman year experience when I was on the other end of move in day and was the one being helped move in). In any case, I couldn’t believe that I was helping move in for the third year in a row!

I will get back to my drive in memory lane (which also happens to be the carpool lane, because who wants to sit in traffic when they are flying down memory lane?) in a bit, but I need to get to my trips up and down those stairs, as well as my awesome analogy. You see, getting people moved in is a lot like trying to win a baseball game. There is a saying that goes, “Get em’ on, get em’ over, and get em’ in.” This means that you want to get a person on base, advance them, and get them home to score. Things work a little like that while moving in, only its “Move em’ on, move em’ over, and move em’ in.” First we want to move students on campus by having them find the place where they need to be moving in. Then we want to move them over and signed in to receive their key. Finally, our goal is to get them and all of their belongings moved in.

Saturday worked out as well as could have been expected. The weather was not too hot, the spirits of everyone moving in was good, and everyone was very willing to help out. Personally, I was excited to get going on my third year as a member of the move in crew. I definitely put in some quality time in the fours hours we were allotted to help move in. I think I was sweating through my shirt within the first 10 minutes of schlepping personal items up what seemed like never ending stairs in Capstone. Along the way I met several very eager students, and what seemed like even more eager parents who I weren’t sure were more eager to get their students moved in, or to just be done with the stress of moving in!

Now it’s time to change lanes back to “memory.” By the end of my shift, things were slowing down a bit, and I was just about ready to leave when I got another blast from the past. I was looking at the folks moving in when I saw my roommate from freshman year! He was there with his family helping to move in a new generation, as his little brother is an incoming freshman. I made sure to help them move in (although the fact that he lived on the second floor certainly made my decision easier!). Helping them allowed me to get a little reminder of what I went through four summers with the same family. In the end it was a day of several trips, be it up the stairs or coasting down memory lane! Take care!

Posted by Cory at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you have read my blogs for any period of time, you may have picked up a subtle hint that I am a huge Chicago Cubs baseball fan. I like them so much that I often buy the Internet package so I can watch them whenever I want on my computer. I like them so much my day can be ruined by a loss. I like them so much I flew Chicago and watched them play last year. Unfortunately, Columbia is far from Chicago and those trips just aren’t easy to make. Lucky for me, we are within driving distance of Atlanta, and so last week, with the Cubbies up 2-0 in their three game series and poised for a sweep, Brad and I drove to Atlanta with our brooms at the ready to meet my aunt and uncle for a night of baseball.

Normally when a team goes on the road, you can expect the home team to have quite an advantage in the number of fans and the atmosphere it creates for the home team, much like when our Gamecocks play right here in Columbia at Williams Brice Stadium. However, these are the Chicago Cubs, and they tend to have crazy fans such as myself all across the country that will travel great distances to see our team play. This theory was proved correct when we stepped into the stadium and were awash in a sea of “cub blue” shirt, hats, and other such clothing. I mean, I was a little worried about wearing my Cubs gear in an opposing teams stadium, but I felt right at home there at “Wrigley Field South” or for those being “official” Turner Field. Not to mention I was able to add yet another Cub fan when I was able to convert Brad, usually a Cleveland Indians fan, into a Cub fan for the night and lent him my jersey!

Now, a trip to enemy territory would not be nearly as enjoyable if your team loses, then you just look silly having driving three hours to see your team lose and then have to endure the ribbing of the opposing fans. Lucky for me and the majority of the folks in the ballpark, we were treated to a fantastic game. The Cubs brought their heavy bats with them as they pounded out 11 runs, along with a couple of home runs that just missed us in our leftfield bleacher seats!

Despite all of those runs, it just wouldn’t be a Cub game if it had remained a simple blowout, no the Cubs had to make our lives miserable as they were able to give up 7 runs of their own. It all came down to a very tense/exciting 9th inning. The Cubs allowed a couple of men on base, but were able to shut down the Braves to get the win. With that 3rd out I reached into my pocket and pulled out my own personal Cubs “W” flag, with a white background and a blue W. This is the traditional flag that is flown after a win when they play at their home in Wrigley Field in Chicago. So, me and my “closest” friends made ourselves right at home, from the “Let’s Go Cub-ies” chants, to the roaring ovations for our boys in blue, and finally waving our own “W” flags! Sure, there were some pretty unhappy Braves fans, but they just couldn’t outdraw those of us who bleed that Cubby Blue!

By the end of the night, Brad, my aunt and uncle and I were all pretty exhausted, but it was worth it to take a fun trip to see a game with my FAVORITE team winning no less! However, with the end of that game, I was brought one day closer to close of summertime. So, I think I will go ahead and savor it while I can, and catch y’all later. Take care!

Posted by Cory at 09:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It has been a busy summer for myself. Right after a brutal finals schedule I was on a plane out to Tucson to begin a month long, forty hour a week pharmacy rotation. As soon as that was over with, I was headed back out here to SC to do a summer long internship in the pharmacy at Target. Once that ended, I was busy moving on up here to my new apartment in Columbia. Needless to say, I had not really gotten a “vacation” during my summer vacation. So, when my friend Jenna, who just so happened to have spent the last seven months studying in Spain, invited me to her lake house for the weekend in Virginia, I jumped at the chance!

Her house was about fifty miles across the North Carolina border, about forty five minutes away from Roanoke (which doesn’t mean much to my geographically challenged self but I thought I would fill you in either way) at a lovely little place known as Smith Mountain Lake. After a four and a half hour drive north from Columbia, I arrived at her house and was greeted by her after not seeing her since the semester ended in December due to her study abroad adventures.

Within twenty minutes of arriving we were out on her boat on the lake. For me, getting out on the water brings back a lot of fantastic memories from when I was a kid when we would go to the lake in Arizona (indeed there are bodies of water greater than the size of a pool out in the desert!). Within forty minutes they had me in the water and were towing me behind the boat on the tube. And within 41 minutes I was bobbing up and down in the lake after having fallen right off that tube!

Over the course of my time being there I became a regular boat expert. I quickly learned how to tie the knot to dock the boat, was jumping out onto the dock as we moved in, and I actually learned how to drive the boat one afternoon!. In addition to hanging out on the water, we took an afternoon and checked out the amazing National D-Day memorial in nearby Bedford, VA. It was truly a moving experience, and I was very impressed by the complex that the memorial was on. After our visit, we hit up a local Amish dairy and got some very tasty all natural ice cream. It was a perfect way to end a perfect day!

Aside from all of the fun, the great view and great friends really helped me unwind after an intense summer. I think I was also inspired to purchase a lake house and boat…in the future when I have, like, a job. Until then I will hold on to all of the fun times I had, and wait until the next time I can take that trip up north. I will also try to think of all of the fun instead of the impending school year. Take care!

Posted by Cory at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three words. Just three words can strike fear into anyone who has ever bought a piece of furniture, model car, or any other “buildable iteam”. Those three words being of course “some assembly required”. During the last week, I ran into a buzz saw of “assembly required” products that were necessities in my new apartment. Luckily, the men on my Dad’s side of the family have a long history of assembling. From fixing a broken table to assembling a Lego model, we can tackle any sort of assembling, and usually with a minimum of yelling and fighting too.

To top off the typical trouble with assembling, my father and I only had a limited amount of time before he and Mom were on a flight westbound for Tucson. So, we had to work quickly and efficiently. The main project was my new desk that also came with a file drawer and printer cart. We started out the project by getting out all of the different parts and I must admit I was a little overwhelmed, but we went ahead and took it step by step. In what seemed like no time at all we had the desk all put together, printer cart and all. Was it perfect? Not quite. The drawers don’t quite close right, and there is a hole that was drilled not quite where it should be, but it has our stamp of, how shall I say, “character.”

With the desk all finished, I had to take Mom and Dad to the airport to go home, but they left me with a new bag of tools and some knowledge of basic furniture assembly. They also left with a bookshelf that needed putting together, as well as a tall lamp that came in pieces. I set out right away on that book shelf, and I guess that experience paid off because I had that bookshelf up and running in no time.

I also mentioned that lamp. Although it seemed like the easiest item to assemble, it turned out to be a little trickier than I imagined. Lucky for me, I had my bag of tools handy and fixed the little issue in no time. Yes sir, I have become quite the handyman in the last few days. It also brings up a little hint as you may be packing to come on down in a few days. It may be a good idea to pick up an “all in one tool” that contains pliers, screwdriver, etc. all in the same tool. For someone living with limited space in the residence halls, it can be quite handy, and a great space saver too!

With all of this new handyman experience, will I be tackling all of the problems that pop up around the new pad? I think I may leave that to the professionals, but I can tighten a screw or hammer a nail with the best of them. Take care, and let me know if you need anything fixed or assembled around the house!

Posted by Cory at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aaaaaalllll right there sportsfans, I know you have all been pining for a tasty slice of my blog, but I have not been in the kitchen, or when in the kitchen, have not been in the mood to cook. Convoluted analogy aside, I have been quite busy and as such have not had a ton of time to devote to my bloggings and such. However, I am back (sort of a hint as to the particular flavor of this blog) and rarin’ to get back in the “kitchen”.

Ironically, this blog has nothing to do with cooking, kitchens, or food whatsoever (despite my overuse of the theme in the first paragraph). In fact, I am here to talking about moving back in. For the last three years I have been moving in to campus housing to live for the year. However, this is my first year making “the move” off campus. I have had some fantastic times living on campus, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Especially you freshman, y’all are in for a treat living on campus your first year but for me it was the year to finally make the move off campus.

Anyways, I said I was moving off campus, and technically I am not in “on campus housing” but I am geographically practically “on campus” as I moved into the apartments known as The Wilshire House. It is located right behind California Dreaming and the other end of the Assembly Street walking bridge to the Strom. If you are having trouble picturing where it is, you’ll get the hang of it after you get here for a few days, trust me.

I started this “Great Move” back on Monday with the big help of Mom and Dad who came out for the move in, along with my roommate Ryan and our friend Chad. All it took was a moving truck, some eager sets of bodies willing to move, and about five trips up the elevator to get all of stuff moved in. I say moved in, but it was more along the lines of getting everything within the walls of the apartment. Once that was done, Ryan headed back to his home in Greenville and the real fun began as the unpacking and “putting away of everything” commenced.

In actuality, it was a lot of fun deciding how I wanted to organize my room, and putting together my furniture (another story altogether!) and when I took my parents to the airport on Tuesday, there was still a lot to be done. Even as I sit here and type this for you, there remains a few things yet to get done around our place, but I am pleased with how it is all coming along and I promise some pictures once we get it all finished, hopefully some time before school starts! Glad to be back in “the kitchen” and I look forward to much more. Take care!

Posted by Cory at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)