The Honors Institute

     I wasn't sure what to expect from Honors Forum. I had attended it once before I became a student at Jones, when my older brother, the living legend Caleb Houston, was still going there. I tagged along one time, I can't remember why, and sat in the library while he attended classes. During a break, he came back to check on me and asked if I would like to go to his next class with him. I figured it would be better than playing games on his laptop, so I agreed to come along. I've always been afraid of new people, and was even more so back then, but once everyone found out I was Caleb's brother, they were the nicest people you could meet.
     We played a game where a circle of people join hands and crowd together to make the circle tight. Then, you put someone in the middle of the human fence and they try to get out. The secret is to just ask, and the fence-people will let you out. It was supposed to illustrate that the problems we face in life could be a lot easier if we would just ask for help. We did some other things which I don't really remember, and then it was over. I thought it was one of the coolest classes I'd ever been in, so naturally when I decided to go to Jones I joined the Honors Institute. The full tuition coverage and book money they offered didn't hurt, either. Now that I've been in it for a while, my view of it has changed somewhat.
     Of course I couldn't appreciate this from just one visit, but there's a lot of work that goes in to Honors. Also, and I know this will make me sound conceited (which I guess I sort of am), but I'm not used to being around people that are smarter than me. Whenever I hung out with my old friends, they would get annoyed with me for knowing more about things than they did. Whenever they had questions about troubling concepts in school, or were just curious about something, they would ask me and I would tell them about it. It wasn't long before I developed a reputation as the smart kid. When I went to Jones however, the people I met in Honors were as smart or smarter than me. It was humbling to say the least, but I finally realized that there are a lot of people in the world who are a lot more intelligent than I am.
     Overall, the Charles Pickering Honors Institute has been a great experience for me, even though I joke about being in an "Institution" sometimes. I have a feeling I'll be drawing from the resources it has given me for a long time.

The Second Semester

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm back. Finals weren't nearly as hard as I expected, so that was good. I was glad to have a break for a while, but near the end I was ready for school again. As for how I spent Christmas vacation, I'm afraid there's not much to tell. We made a surprise visit to my older sister's house for Christmas this year, which almost ended up being a disaster because we didn't bring a key to get into her apartment. Fortunately, she arrived about five minutes after we got there, saving us from freezing outside in the 20 degree weather with a strong wind. It wouldn't have been a very happy Christmas memory to come home and find your family frozen on the doorstep. Now for the question I've been hearing all day: What did you get for Christmas? This year was a pretty good haul. The most useful thing I got was a new car sterio with an auxillary port (the place where you plug in your mp3 player), which was desperately needed since weeks of listening to my limited CD collection on my college commutes got old pretty fast. The most stylish gift I got was a t-shirt with one of my favorite quotes printed on it. It comes from the penguins on the movie Madagascar: "Smile and wave, boys. Just smile and wave." I also got a book from the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader series (one of my favorite series of all time). It's a collection of information on trivia and interesting news. Most of the information is pretty lighthearted, and makes for a great way to make your bathroom time more productive (let's hear it for multi-tasking). I've actually learned so much and collected so many books from the series that my family claims I learned more from Uncle John than I did from my formal education.
Today and yesterday were the first days of classes. I'm taking seven classes this semester, which come to about 18 hours a week. I've decided to try to write for both newspaper and yearbook, and see which one best suits my writing style. All this has to be balanced on top of working my regular job at the plant during the busiest season of the year. Needless to say, I'm going to be busy. In other news, I've been asked to write a series of articles for my dentist, who happens to be an old family friend. I'm going to have to do my very best work for him, since he's planning on using the articles to put on his website and possibly even in a book. As for my work at The ReView, I'm thinking of submitting my dental articles as a series of columns entitled: Straight From the Dentist's Mouth.
So that's what I'll be doing this semester. No problem, right?