Monday, November 21, 2005

Get This Man His Trophy…

OK this isn’t like my usual post and if you don’t follow college football you might as well stop reading now cuz you’re just going to be bored. But I have to talk about this right now as I read espn.com. This weekend was one of the most stressful weekends for USC Trojan fans since…well…October 15th. But besides the Notre Dame game, no game was more nerve racking then the win we just notched against Fresno State. It was such a great atmosphere. All of our home games this season had been pretty boring. The teams came in almost knowing they were gonna lose. There were almost no fans from the other schools, and the ones that did manage to show up looked like they were all there just to come to LA and hit up the club. This was the first time we actually had a legitimate reason to stay for the entire game. We were jumping and screaming and cheering like we were at a bowl game (it really felt like that). Even though the team may not have been looking ahead to the UCLA game, the fans definitely were and I think we were shocked by what we saw when Fresno State got there. They must have brought 20,000 fans with them and each and every one of them truly believed that their team was going to win. At first we thought it was a cute thought and figured they were just all so excited to be out of Fresno and in LA. But we found out quickly that this would be one of USC’s hardest fought wins all season. And that win would definitely not have happened without a certain member of the USC football team that wears the number 5.

Look, every Trojan fan has their favorites, but there is NO ONE who saw the game on Saturday who can look you straight in the face and say that Reggie Bush is anything short of amazing. Every time he touched the ball he looked like he was about to score a touchdown. On one play I swear he stopped right before going out of bounds in mid air, reversed directions, broke the ankles of about 3 Fresno State players and broke off in the other direction, finally scoring a touchdown on the other side of the field. The man had so many great plays that they even showed one of them during the game from the GOODYEAR BLIMP flying overhead!!!

The messed up part of the situation was that the game didn’t end until after 11pm west coast time, meaning most of the country was asleep during what had to be the best game of Reggie’s career. He rushed for 294 yards. There are players on the team who haven’t rushed for 294 yards this season. He had 513 all-purpose yards. You could probably add about another 200 yards to his total if you could count yards running east to west. And the best part of it all? Maurice Drew, UCLA’s supposed answer to Reggie Bush was at the game to witness why he will never be as good as #5. I hope he got an eyeful of why they will lose when he returns to the Coliseum in two weeks with his teammates.

Anybody who saw this game and what Reggie did will not hesitate voting for Reggie Bush for the Heisman. I know Vince Young is an amazing quarterback and I love Matt Leinart to death, but that award is about the best player in college football…period. And it is obvious to all 90,0007 people who were in the Coliseum on Saturday that the best player is definitely Reggie Bush.

But while we’re talking about the game, can we give some props to Fresno State? People are sleeping on them for real. If they hadn’t lost to Oregon, they almost definitely should have gotten a BCS bowl game. They are better than almost any team we’ve played since I’ve been at USC, including this year’s Notre Dame. They are way better than UCLA this year and would lay the smack down on the Bruins’ wack ass defense (sort of like what we’re going to do to them Dec. 3rd). They are underrated and should be in the Top 10. They’d be no lower than third in the Pac-10. Can we trade them for the Washington schools so that the Pac-10 gets more credibility? They had us worried y’all. And they had so much support from their fans it was ridiculous. I’ve got nothing but respect for that team and I hope they smack down whoever they play in whatever bowl game they get.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

We Got ESPN!!!

I'm extra excited because I'm sitting in our CED (Center for Engineering Diversity) study center (where I am usually every day all day) and I look over at the high priced, unnecessary flat screen TV they put in here and ESPN IS ON! You have no idea how happy I am right now. For the last 4 months we've been watching CNN and the History Channel. I'm all for education and stuff but I get to watch BASKETBALL!!!! YAY!!!!

I'm about as happy as Duke is right now cuz they just beat Seton Hall 93-40. I think they should have hung 100 on 'em but I guess they were being nice. The game was over after about 2 minutes. When you're down 30-5 then you should go home and call it a night. I love college basketball, I wish USC was better but I guess I'll just have to get by with a National Championship football team :O)

Which reminds me that I need Reggie Bush to have at least 3 highlight reel plays in each of the next two games so that everyone else can be reminded of how tight he is and he can win the Heisman. I don't care what you say, he's the best damn player in college football. The Heisman trophy is supposed to go to the BEST player in college football, not the most valuable. So Vince Young can go sit down somewhere.

And how about those Clippers and Warriors? Everyone in Cali is just excited to see these teams winning games. At least I know that I am. And the Warriors are better than the Kings right now...how great is that?!?! Finally the Bay Area basketball fan gets to cheer on the Bay Area team to victory. You guys can get off of the Kings bandwagon now...they suck and no one really likes Sacramento anyways. You were all just sick of watching the Warriors lose, I understand, but it's over now....thank god!

OK enough random sports thoughts for the day....Sportscenter is on! :O)

Monday, November 14, 2005

Congratulations & Reflections

So like my friend Dizzy25, I too learned a couple of things in my recent NSBE conference experience last weekend. Thank god I didn't have to travel anywhere but down the 110 and over the 105 to get to my conference at the Westin LAX this weekend. After a much more relaxing conference experience than the previous two, I come away with a couple of thoughts and questions:

I'm not officially a NSBE old head, but damn am I close. There were plenty of people in the region that I knew, but there are so many new people that I don't. And you know that feeling when you just FEEL older than everyone else? The only thing is that when I'm with the alumni members, I don't feel old enough to really fit in there. I'm not gonna lie, I was much more comfortable at the collegiate party than the alumni networking mixer. I guess it's just as I suspected....I'm still a kid at heart. I'm an 18 year-old trapped in a 65 year old body (damn arthritis is acting up again).

Why is that no matter how hard I work during any given year in NSBE, it always seem to come out better the next year. Kim has come up with a theory about this. She says that it's because usually the year that I hold a position I'm cleaning up messes from years before and so the person who comes after me has it easier than I did. While that makes me sound great, I don't know if I agree with that. But I still don't know what it is.

It was just really strange to me all weekend how calm and collected and put together everything was this weekend. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating. I'm actually glad this FRC went well and so many people had a great time at the conference, because I was beginning to lose hope. But things that always makes you wonder, what could you have done better to make what you did better? How much of it was things that I could have controlled and how much of it was based on the contributions (or lack thereof) of the people around you. Maybe I'm just being overcritical of myself right now, but I couldn't help shaking the feeling all weekend...it was really strange.

But besides that it felt really good to sort of be able to participate in the conference. I had a workshop to give, I judged a competition and I did one presentation at general session, but this pales in comparison to the things I had endured as Regional Vice Chair and Regional Chair. I think the best thing about the conference though was seeing the people from USC enjoy themselves so much and get inspired by what was going on. I mean that's really what these conferences are for. The excitement that our new members are showing for NSBE reminds me of how I was after my first NSBE conference and that makes me really happy. Hopefully there will be some renewed enthusiasm here now. We'll just have to wait and find out...

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Why Do You Have Time...

Ok so today I spent WAY too much time reading everyone else's blogs (hours of fun in Dizzy's place) and then decided to write something in my blog. And I thought about it, why does everyone else have so much time to write in their blogs and I don't? Why is it that other people can find time almost every day to write down all of these thoughts? Then I thought about it...these people aren't in engineering school!

Which is exactly why I'm trying to get out! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Really I can. The problem is that everytime I see the light and get close enough to touch it, it moves farther away. So I've decided that regardless of what happens between now and May, I'm leaving in May. I don't care. I refuse to stay here any longer. I've OFFICIALLY been at USC too long. Need proof....here you go...


You know you've been at USC too long when:

1. People that came to USC after you now are trying to recruit you at the Career Fair

2. People say things like "Syreeta you can't leave....what would USC be without Syreeta?" (I'm flattered really, but you get the idea)

3. You've been at USC longer than Pete Carroll and probably most of the USC Football coaching staff

4. You remember the last time USC lost to UCLA in football...and you were there

5. There are about 10 buildings on campus that were not here when you got here

6. The freshman were in elementary school when you first got to USC


I could go on and on but I'm just depressing myself. Then people say things like "but you're gonna have two degrees when you leave". That doesn't change the feeling that I'm never gonna leave this place and after all these years of pain suffering I'm gonna end up working at Best Buy (don't trip they get good discounts and I could play with electronics all day).

OK OK OK enough with that subject. You just gotta get that out sometimes you know. But on the bright side I've discovered a viable way to get my degree without ever taking another electrical engineering class. I've dropped the EE class I'm taking right now (didn't need, don't know what I was thinking) and I will just finish my computer science class (that doesn't involve programming...go figure). This is my schedule for next semester...

Business Entrepreneurship 551 - Intro to New Ventures
Law 599 - Intellectual Property for Engineers & Scientists
Industrial Engineering 585 - Strategic Mgmt of Technology


These are big fancy names for classes that I only have to go to once a week, read some books and write a paper for or do a group project in. Finally the life of a non-engineering major! I'm excited, plus now I can figure out if I like taking Business or Law classes so when I get tired of being an engineer (which I estimate will happen before 2009) I have some background on whether Business or Law school is for me. An MBA or JD sounds nice =0)

OK now I've talked for way too long when I'm supposed to be watching my lecture from yesterday that I was too lazy to go.