So in one of my classes, we were passed out an article that discussed this test.

Give it a shot and see how you like the answer.

www.implicit.harvard.edu

I scored with seventeen percent of America and have little to no automatic preference between black and white people.

Matt

Counting the three deaths today, there has now been 104 murders in philly so far this year. To put in perspective, I believe there were 63 in Boston in all of last year.

Matthew

My flight was supposed to leave the Evansville airport at 11:20, however, as usual things did not go exactly as planned. As soon as I passed through security I noticed that my flight was delayed until 12:10. No big deal, or so I thought, until they changed it yet again to 1:10. This would have made my 1:45 connection pretty hard considering it’s an hour flight to Memphis. At this point I decided to call Northwest. They put me on a different flight to Detroit, and although that meant that I would not get back to my dorm until 10 PM, it would at least mean that I would get back that night.

All problems with today’s air travel aside, I had some very interesting conversations with the guy – Burke Gerth… or Gerth Burke, can’t really remember which – who was sitting next to me on the first leg of my flight. He was on his was to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. This is a trip that he and his childhood friend – they both grew up and live in Evansville – have been planning for three years. They are attempting the ascent in six days hoping that this is the ideal amount of time to avoid both altitude sickness and climber’s fatigue. After their climb, they were also going on a safari, pointing out that if you are going to Africa, you might as well see the animals.

I can’t remember how we got on the subject, but we got into when he used to parasail. He said that it was a ton of fun and thought that it was relatively safe. He thought this until his sail broke off and he went head first into a tree, and then head first into the ground. He broke his neck in the fall. Although he did not injure his spinal cord, which he is thankful for, he was stuck in a neck brace for a month and a half and it was not certain that he would be able to return to the job which he loves. He said that although he really enjoyed parasailing, hitting that tree kind of took all the fun out of it. I told him that I doubt anyone thinks any less of him for giving it up.

His story about breaking his neck, and being a firefighter, reminded me of a story Jeffery told us a day or so earlier. I told Burke a friend of my dad’s knew a firefighter who fell off a picnic bench, broke his neck and died.

At this point Burke looked at me and seemed a little upset – strange because he was a very upbeat guy. It turns out that Burke was actually that firefighter’s friend, and he was there at the time of the accident. He said that he saw his friend fall, and that he and his buddies thought he was kidding when his friend said he could not get up. But soon Burke felt sick to his stomach as he learned the truth.

However, this is not what killed his friend. After the accident, and in the hospital, his friend lost his will to live. He had been through a few years of a terrible divorce, and his job was all he really had to live for. He was a fairly poor guy and did not want to have to be taken care of all his life so he stopped eating and refused to let anyone visit. Took three weeks before he finally died.

We also talked of Burke’s time in the army, how he was stationed in Germany during the cold war. He said that it was an okay time and he really had a lot of respect for the German people. He also said he enjoyed his leaves, and loved the fact that he was able to see all the places he really wanted to.

After the war he worked in a state park as a fire-something-or-other, and said it was the best job he ever had, and that’s where he met his first wife. It was a good job for someone who was single, but once he got married they moved to Evansville. He said that his wife was homesick every day that they were married, and eventually she moved back to Colorado. He said that the other problem was the fact that they had very different upbringings, his being that of a conservative German, and she a freethinking liberal who grew up with Indians. I thought that was a nice touch. He was married to her for 11 years, and has now been married to his second wife for ten and is sure that she will be the last.

Cell Phone etiquette

Since I still feel that my dad is not living up to his responsibilities on the blog, and i can’t remember my own username and password, I have logged on through his name to write a small post of my own.

So today I am leaving class and taking an elevator six flights down, there are around six other people in the elevator with me, four kids and two adults. Me and two of the other kids are minding our own business, or at least not saying anything or talking to anyone, and the other is on her cell phone. The two adults however are in a full conversation when the woman notices that this girl is on the phone.  In a voice more then loud enough for all to hear she says ” You know what I really find rude is people on a cell phone in a elevator.”

Now, I do not care where or when you use your cell phone. Especially considering that I could not live without my own, although there are times I will not pick up because of the situation that I am in. Still, using a cell phone in a elevator, i would not consider to be a capital sin. It was not as if she were talking loud, in fact she was being more quite then the two having the conversation.

What I do consider to be rude though, is the woman that pointed out that she was using a cell phone in a loud voice. I mean, how is what she was doing any different then the conversation that the two others were having. In fact, I was more distracted by the two having the conversation than the girl on the cell phone.

I was very close to saying something, however, being as sleepy as I am, and not having gotten enough sleep lately, decided to hold my tongue.  Still, i think she should have held hers. I know that I am speaking to many people over the blog, including those (adam) who have many cell phone pet peeves of their own. However, she was not hurting anyone and certainly not being nearly as rude as the lady who pointed out what she was doing.

Well, I was just looking for something to add to the blog. Maybe now that I have added something my dad will come back to life. Considering that usually I have conversations with him at four in the morning because he is just a big a insomniac as I am… at least usually.

Still looking for you dad

matt

Matthew’s Comics

Matthew Miller
Peabody Hall, Room L323

Dear Matthew:

Making good choices is an important part of your job as a college student. On Friday, September 22, 2006 you did not make a good choice by entering a fraternity house that was accepting money for alcohol being served on its premises. It is a violation of state law and University policy to use, consume, possess, sell or purchase alcohol when you are under the age of twenty-one.

In addition, your personal safety was at risk by being in a building that was not equipped to handle 220 people. The fire safety equipment was not working and there were not enough exits to allow everyone to leave safely in the event of an emergency.

As an administrator I am concerned most about your safety. It scares me to think what might have happened that evening if a fire had erupted in that house. I want to see every student succeed at Temple University and become leaders and positive role models.

I have decided not to proceed with disciplinary action against you. I feel that we have a great opportunity to educate students as a result of this incident and am confident that you will make better choices in the future. Please review the University Alcohol Policy as well as the Student Code of Conduct. Both of these can be found on the policies webpage at http://policies.temple.edu.

If you would like more information on healthy choices and alternatives to drinking please contact the Campus Alcohol and Substance Awareness program through Tuttleman Counseling Services. They can be reached via phone at (215) 204-7276. In addition there are a variety of late night programs that are offered each week as alternatives to drinking. Please check the website for the Office of Student Activities at www.temple.edu/sac for a complete schedule of these activities.

I hope that you have learned from this experience and will make better choices in the future. Please contact me if you would like to receive additional information about this matter or about alcohol-free programming. I can be reached via e-mail at @temple.edu or via phone at (215) 204-8531.

Sincerely,

Assistant Dean of Judicial Affairs

Hello again parents,

Sorry it has been a while, things are a little hectic at the moment. I have a paper and a test tomorrow and then another test on monday. I am spending a lot of time preparing for them. So I have been in college for over a month now, and I still love it. A few observations or comments however: all the socks I own are now a very nice shade of pink, this includes a few white shirts. The chair that we bought had met its end, although we guessed that it might be due to the cheap price of it originally. I have been eating more in the last month than I think I ever have before. My sleep schedule is more messed up then usual. I tend to not get much sleep at night and end up getting the majority of what I need to survive during the day. Debbie is coming, she will arrive on the 13th of October and then leave the following monday. I am excited to see her, considering she is the first person from home that i will be able to see in over a month which is kind of a weird idea. I do miss all my friends, and am excited for thanksgiving even though we are not that close.

Along with this, I am now the third floor representative for the peabody senate committee. This just means that I go to a meeting once a week and give input as to what kind of programs or activities my floor wants to participate in. No one else on my floor wanted to do it, and Vaughn asked if I would. I figured that I might as well get involved in something so I agreed.

I almost forgot about my eye. A few days ago I was going up the stairs in my dorm and there was a kid who was running down them. He caught me in the face with his elbow and gave me a very large black eye. He felt terrible and I just told him not to worry about it, seeing as that it is not a very big deal. It does look pretty gruesome though, it reminded me of mom falling down the basement stairs.

That is good news about mattel, although i bet now it will shoot to the moon since we decided to sell. Oh, and maybe the money could be used for the following if needed?

On a more somber note…..
Last saturday i was at a party with my roommate and a lot of other people… 220 to be exact. It was a frat which are usually a pretty safe places to go, even if it is over crowded and not that fun always. Everyone in college goes to frat parties, it is just how it works. However on this day, not that long after we got there the police arrived. It turned out that there had been an investigation into that specific frat for reasons that we had no idea beforehand. Although they did not find what they were looking for they did take down the names of all the kids. I did not think that they would ever do anything about it, considering they have broken up frats before and not done anything. But on this occasion they have decided to send us all notices saying that we broke school policy. I have attached the notice to the email as well for you and dad to have a look at. I do not know if I am going to appeal the finding considering they have no proof that anyone was drinking. They are just saying everyone is guilty because we were all there. They did not breathalyze anyone or do anything of the sort. There is a meeting tomorrow that I have to attend on the matter and after that I will figure out what I need to do and whether I should appeal it or not. It is just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve talked to a lot of people about it and this has like never happened before. They believed the frat was into drugs and stuff and me and john had never heard anything about the frat before. It was also our first time there. It just sucks. If you could give me a call later that would be nice, whenever it is a good time for you of course.

Love always,
Matt

Hello once again parents,

Things are still going very well. I just got over the first hump in my classes, meaning that i did some papers and took some tests and believe that i did pretty well. Now we will learn a little more before doing it all again. I have been taking a lot of trips into the city, getting some good cultural food and stuff like that. On Saturday night we were going to go to a party at one of my friend’s house in the ghetto, but his block was having a party and they invited all of us. It was a large block party and most of the people who lived on the block were related so it was pretty interesting. They had tons of food and told us to help ourselves. They taught me how to crack crab and eat it, my first time having crab, and it was absolutely fantastic. They just put whole crabs on the grill and you just grab one off and break it up in your hands and eat it.
Just another reason that I love the City. Debbie may be flying up to see me in october, which will be a lot of fun if it works out and i am now capable of showing her the real philly and such. I already worked it out with my RD, who is a really cool guy, to make it so that if she does come she can stay more nights then is normally allowed.

As for the money issues, I will call you later today to talk about them, not really sure what to do but money for the PNC account would be more helpful than diamond dollars.

For parents weekend… when is that again? I would be up for the draughthorse and things like that, but not really a fan of going to a football game…. also our team is really bad. And i mean really really bad. Our last game we lost 62-0.

Anyway, I will talk to you later today
love
matt

So this should be our last post before you will all be able to see us again in person and not just read of our wonderful adventures from my unbelievable writing style. Before I go on i would just like to say a special thanks to sue, without her help really none of this would have been possible. While i am saying thanks, i would also like to thank everyone who gave me money for graduation, just know that your money has been well spent and mostly on great food.

 Now for the post: So we will be leaving tomorrow, we have to get up around seven, and for a while we had no idea how we were going to be getting to the airport. For a while we thought that we would have to take a train then two water boats. I don’t even think it would have been possible because of when the waterboats start to run. Since we don’t panic, we just asked the guy at the hotel if it was possible to take a cab. This is a guy from the hotel who we also gave an english book to, and who knew that it would pay off. Instead of taking a cab or doing other crazy things at seven in the morning, he offered to drive us the twenty mins to the airport once he got off his shift at eight. A book for a ride is a good deal in my book. Well, that’s that part.

Well, this is definitely not the nicest of our hotel rooms. It isn’t that bad except for the fact that it never seems to get below 100° F, even at three in the morning. I am able to handle it pretty well although every third word out of debbie’s mouth is something like “Am I dead yet?”. She’s taken to sleeping with a cold towel over her head, which she makes me re-cool every ten mins or something like that.

The night we arrived we went out for a nice dinner and then went back into the other part of venice where our hotel is, you have to take a train to get there. We asked the guy at the hotel where we could go and watch the Football game. He gave us the name of a nice little place and stamped it, telling us that they would give us a good price if we gave them the card. When we got there we were seated next to a nice australian, with whom we had long conversations about many things. Mainly how he is a lawyer, how people in sports get too much money and especially how little everyone else thinks of america and how we must be ashamed to admit that it is where we are from. He was very friendly and we gave him some good advice on how to travel around venice. He was also traveling by himself on a round the world ticket, something that i may have to try at some point in my life.

Yesterday we took a very nice little day trip to the island of Lido, a very nice and very, very upscale little place. We should have done more research into it before coming to italy because it had some very nice beaches that i’m sure we could have spent a lot of time enjoying.

Tonight we are going out to a mildly expensive dinner, and then to a wildly expensive gondola ride which debbie says is something we must do before we leave. I do agree with her on one hand, but the price is so exorbitant( or is it exuberant) that i don’t even dare to mention it on the internet. It is something that we have to do though, so even the cheap one of us has agreed to take part in this forty five min boat ride tour. We are going to try to do it at night, so it will be cooler and debbie won’t have to get cancer again.

Oh by the way, it could not be any hotter here. I don’t know what the weather is like back in Acton, but if i had to guess i would say that in the day and in the sun it is about 90 at times. It is really hot and we are doing all we can to stay out of the sun and keep the sunscreen on thick… at least on debs.

The time has gone by so fast, and we are getting a little depressed about leaving. but on the other hand it feels like we have not been in Acton for a few years and we are both looking forward to seeing everyone, all our friends, and being able to sleep in our own beds with some good old A.C.

Again, thanks to everyone who made this trip possible and all the people who kept us informed through the blog comments. It has been really great and i think we may have gone crazy without all you. oh, and father, you will be glad to know that between me and deb we have over 400 photos that you will be able to go through and edit to your heart’s content. Oh, and pops, when are you coming back from indiana? Come home soon cause i miss you and want to see you before you leave for the vineyard.

Love always

Matt and Deb,

Thanks

We took the overnight train again, although this ride was much more comfortable considering that we only had to fit three people into the really small compartment, at least for most of the ride. This train left at eight and we enjoyed it much more because the ten hours seemed to go by much faster. So we are now back in venice, although not in the same area. We are actually in the part where there are streets which is okay by us because you just take a five min bus ride to the other part. We could prolly walk but at the moment we have no idea what direction that would be. We arrived at our hotel at about 5:45, and it was locked. Although someone heard us and came to the door. He said that he would take our bags but we would not be able to check in for another three hours. Not great news but we are handling it in stride… debbie is doing well and i am very proud of her. After the news about the three hours we went back to the train station and read for a while, then walked around aimlessly for about a half hour and then found this internet point. So we plan on spending a little more time here before heading back to our hotel and sleeping for about seven hours if i get my way.

I don’t know if it was in an email or a post on the blog but one of my parents asked me how i was doing on my books. Deciding how many to bring was a tough decision, for two weeks and a couple days i had no idea how many i would read. For a while i was considering bringing two to four, then i up’ed it to six. Well I finished those two days ago and had to buy more. Oh and i read the one debbie brought. Which now brings my total to nine books read. I have one more that i can read, bridget jones diary… something debbie bought the other day. I can’t say that i am looking all that forward to it, but anything will help.

Debbie says hi but she doesn’t think that she is capable of writing at the moment. While I seem to be able to I’m sure there are many mistakes that me and debbie are not catching as i write. And believe me, we are finding many. Seeing as both of us are at that point right near incoherent.

Debbie says i’m rambling now and i would have to agree, but we kinda need something to do for the next fifty mins… oh well maybe check up on cnn.

Much love from both of us and we will write again tomorrow when we have had a good night’s sleep or two.

So, during our first dinner here we were seated next an english couple, who looked a bit overdressed in their silk clothing. The next night at dinner we were seated next to them again at a different restaurant. What a coincidence, so imagine our surprise when last night they showed up once again. It was a little too much for me to handle so i had to contemplate killing them for a while. It wasn’t just that it was the third night in a row, no that would have been enough, but it was a completely different kind of restaurant. Different food, much different price and somewhere far, far away. If they show up again tonight i have resolved that i will have to end it the only way a man can, by jumping into the ocean and drowning myself.

We are now off to the emerald grotto or something like that.

We shall speak again soon

Love matt and deb.

So last night, as usual, we picked a dinner restaurant at random. Although maybe it wasn’t at random because we noticed that it was the only place in Italy that had chicken on the menu which is something that debbie had apparently been craving, maybe just to shut up my statements that she doesn’t have a very varied eating pattern. Anyway, there is no way to tell which are the nice restaurants and which are the really nice ones… apparently this was one of the latter. It was definitely worth it though because the food was exquisite. I had some of the best steak and potatoes with a nice green salad and debbie had a chicken somethingorother. It was one of those meals that you see in cooking commercials that just look too well put together to be something you are supposed to eat. Don’t worry though, father, we took pictures so you will get to see it too. For dessert we had some chocolate cake with a white chocolate filling. At first it looked small but then we realized it was so rich that you could not eat one of these small loaves alone. After that we went into the main square to have coffee and drinks (along with peanuts which was one of the more exciting moments of my trip). There were two girls from California sitting next to us and I pointed out that the waiter was hitting on them, although he was being too subtle for debbie to notice. At some point they were approached by two Italian men, and this flirtation was noticed even by debbie. They were trying to get them to go to a night club in sorrento. At some point during this the waiter that had been hitting on them walked up and said to the girls “be careful of all the sharks in Amalfi”, for those of us who are males, we know that this is just not called for in any way. I mean what a blatant attempt to foil their plans. It was pretty funny all around and the two men ended up retreating, but promising they would be back at midnight. We however didn’t stick around to see what happened.

 Debbie wants to add:

First off, Matt left out the best part of that story, haha. The men, particularly one of them, who approached the two women from California, were the typical suave Italian men. One of them looked a bit older than the girls, and he was wearing a red polo with one too many buttons undone. They knew exactly what to say it seemed, even though their english wasn’t great. Anyway, Diane, the water is a teal blue and it is beautiful, to respond to your question. It was filled with a lot of salt a tiny bit cold, but nothing compared to the beaches at home. We swam for a while and are going back today. And, my parents have been very good about keeping in touch now haha thanks for the concerns though. I don’t think there were as many internet points in north carolina as there are here.

Anyways, much love

Matt and Deb