Before we start, I would like to apologize for the late arrival of this blog. The reason for this will be explained in the following paragraph.

I’ve never been one to purposefully miss school. When my mother is scheduling doctor’s or dentist’s appointments, I almost always prefer late afternoon times in order to prevent missing education time. However, this past week I was caught in a conundrum that I was not able to get myself out of. Last Tuesday, Sept. 23, as you all know, I was gone from school all day due to the Student Council Regional Conference (which went swimmingly, by the way), so I missed all my Blue day classes. Then again this Monday, Sept. 29, I was in Manhattan, Kansas attending Kansas State University’s Engineering Scholars Day (more on that later), so I once again missed all of my Blue day classes. Finally, tomorrow, Wednesday, Oct. 1, I will be traveling with the Marching Jaguars to Emporia State University to compete in a marching festival. So, if you’re keeping track, that makes three Blue days in a row that I will be missing. This is not fun. Not being able to see AP Literature teacher Justin Bogart every other day has effectively drained me of all my motivation to work. I can only hope that when I return to class later this week that my classmates will accept me back into their classroom of extensive literary analysis. Because of my effective truancy, I have had to complete a large amount of work on my own without a lesson to aid me, which is not enjoyable, let me tell you. If you ever have the opportunity to miss three consecutive Blue days in a row, I would highly advise against it.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I was absent from the Valley on Monday because I was up in good old Purpletown visiting my fellow perspective Wildcat Engineers. In order to arrive there on time, I was required to wake up at 5:45 a.m. so we could be on the road at 6:45 a.m. This was a lot of fun because I really thoroughly enjoy cutting down the already miniscule time I have to sleep, but it’s all for a good cause. Arriving at the K-State Student Union, I was greeted by a young woman who looked like she had just received 10 times the amount of sleep that I had just experienced, but her alert attitude really hyped me up for the rest of the day. The first part of the day included a two-hour presentation covering various areas of the College of Engineering, and KSU in general. Now, on paper that may seem quite drab and unexciting, but I actually found myself quite interested in all the topics that were spoken about.

Moving from there, we found our way to lunch (hallelujah), where we got sandwiches, chips and some seriously amazing brownies. We were seated randomly with another family (did I mention that my parents were with me? Nope. Well, they were), and a senior studying Mechanical Engineering. Through about 10 minutes of conversation, we found out that our families had many mutual friends, and the other prospective student and I had actually met briefly this summer in Colorado. Small world, ain’t it? After a Student Q&A session, we were taken on tours of the areas of engineering that we were interested in. Interestingly enough, the creepily familiar Colorado kid and I actually both were interested in the same disciple of engineering, Architectural.

After a short walk across a courtyard, we made our way into Seaton Hall, where the Architectural Engineering department is held. We were given a brief tour by an Engineering Ambassador, then passed onto some professors, who gave us a brief overview of their program before we were booted out of our classroom because there was an actual class happening in there. The professors were, for lack of a better word, chill. All of them prefer to run on a first-name basis, much different than some of my experiences with teaching faculty previously (those from my sophomore World History class will recall what I’m referencing). Overall though, it was quite a successful visit, and those wishing to pursue a STEM career, or really any field of study, I would highly recommend Kansas State University.

In conclusion, I would like to wish all of you the best of luck on anything that you have going on in your life that may require luck. Also, start getting excited for Homecoming, which is next week, believe it or not. StuCo has some great things planned, and I’m really excited for you guys to see it all. If you would like a Homecoming T-shirt, they can be purchased for $8 from any StuCo member from your class. Money is due Friday, so get them in quick. That is all.