PAS#7

As our first year of college winds down and our yearlong RCL experience ends so does the passion blogs.  This will be my twenty-first and lasts post to this blog thread.  Through the past twenty it is evident of how much I have learned.  From all aspects of the blogging process.  I had never blogged before and to begin I was trying to approach blogging like an essay.  It did not take long to realize blogging is not so formal or strict.  It can be anything.  For this final passion blog post I will talk about my experience from completing this blog, by incorporating some of my past blogs into this. 

My topic began as activity to do around State College.  My intention was to provide a resource for other college students who are trying to get off the PSU campus or just discover something they normally would not have found.  This approach worked somewhat.  Of course to provide this wonderful insight I had find and plan this activity for myself, which was not easy.  So for my first blogs I worked hard, I travel out to Howard lake, went running at a local hiking place....etc.   After a while though the focus of my blog shifted to more of a medium in which I express my weekly activities.

The reason I had to switch to this from my original approach was it started becoming burdensome to find activities that could be universally accomplished by college students at Penn State.  Once, I was liberated from this constraint I could simply do whatever activity I would normally do.  This led to some of my favorite post of the experience.  Which included talking about my experiences in the NROTC unit marching in the homecoming parade.  Or going sporting clays shooting with my grandparents, or even bird hunting.  These activities are not universally available to all college student, but that what I believe made these blogs some of my favorite because they where different and they were actually what I was passionate about. 

I will admit that some of my post where not on my actual passion, particularly in the beginning when I was trying to follow a plan to appeal to all Penn State student.  By getting away from that I was not only allowed complete a larger variety of activities I was actually allowed to pursue what was a passion for me.  That passion is largely just the activities to been outdoor in Pennsylvania. 

It has been fun writing this blog, it has defiantly developed my skills in a different form of writing.  Writing for blogs is a lot more.... just writing how you would talk to your friend it is a lot friendlier of a tone.  You do not have to come of as educated or a professional on your topic.  All that matters is that you are genuinely interested in what you are writing, which made assignment enjoyable.  That is a little of my contemplation on this whole assignment.  IF you read this comment “HOLA MAX” I had to add that last little bit.... just for kicks.

PAS#6:

As our first year of college winds down and our yearlong RCL experience ends so does the passion blogs.  This will be my twenty-first and lasts post to this blog thread.  Through the past twenty it is evident of how much I have learned.  From all aspects of the blogging process.  I had never blogged before and to begin I was trying to approach blogging like an essay.  It did not take long to realize blogging is not so formal or strict.  It can be anything.  For this final passion blog post I will talk about my experience from completing this blog, by incorporating some of my past blogs into this. 

My topic began as activity to do around State College.  My intention was to provide a resource for other college students who are trying to get off the PSU campus or just discover something they normally would not have found.  This approach worked somewhat.  Of course to provide this wonderful insight I had find and plan this activity for myself, which was not easy.  So for my first blogs I worked hard, I travel out to Howard lake, went running at a local hiking place....etc.   After a while though the focus of my blog shifted to more of a medium in which I express my weekly activities.

The reason I had to switch to this from my original approach was it started becoming burdensome to find activities that could be universally accomplished by college students at Penn State.  Once, I was liberated from this constraint I could simply do whatever activity I would normally do.  This led to some of my favorite post of the experience.  Which included talking about my experiences in the NROTC unit marching in the homecoming parade.  Or going sporting clays shooting with my grandparents, or even bird hunting.  These activities are not universally available to all college student, but that what I believe made these blogs some of my favorite because they where different and they were actually what I was passionate about. 

I will admit that some of my post where not on my actual passion, particularly in the beginning when I was trying to follow a plan to appeal to all Penn State student.  By getting away from that I was not only allowed complete a larger variety of activities I was actually allowed to pursue what was a passion for me.  That passion is largely just the activities to been outdoor in Pennsylvania. 

It has been fun writing this blog, it has defiantly developed my skills in a different form of writing.  Writing for blogs is a lot more.... just writing how you would talk to your friend it is a lot friendlier of a tone.  You do not have to come of as educated or a professional on your topic.  All that matters is that you are genuinely interested in what you are writing, which made assignment enjoyable.  That is a little of my contemplation on this whole assignment.  IF you read this comment “HOLA MAX” I had to add that last little bit.... just for kicks.

PAS#5: NIttany Lion Inn Sunday Brunch

An iconic location at Penn State is the Nittany Lion Inn.  This Inn has been operating on Penn State campus since 1931.   As a special treat for my birthday my grandparents who live in nearby in Woodward Pa took me to Sunday brunch at the Nittany Lion Inn. 

It was a great experience not only eating at the Inn but walking around inside.  The building is amazing.  It is mainly a hotel that harkens back to the late 1800’s early 1900’s.  There are big wood burning fireplaces, beautiful columns and even real trees growing from the ground inside.... that was pretty neat.   I was unable to explore everywhere... but the building is huge.  Everywhere I went did not disappoint.

Now back to the Sunday Brunch.  For the brunch you could either do the buffet or order off a menu, of course my grandparents and I did the buffet.  I can honestly say this buffet was the highest quality buffet I have ever eaten at.  There was not a huge amount of choices for breakfast or lunch, but what they did have was all amazing and high quality. The bacon was without a doubt the best bacon I have ever had. 

The breakfast part of the buffet consist of waffles, pancakes, French toast breakfast burritos a few types of eggs and different types of meat.  I of course had to take a few rounds through to adequately sample everything, something more than once.

 

The lunch part was great with a four or five different types of pasta roast beef and other stuff. The best part of the lunch section in my opinion was they had smoked salmon, which I could honestly come and eat exclusively, but that would be a shame. 

To finish off there was a desert table.  Of course in the dinning halls there are desert tables, but this ones quality was vastly superior.  There was traditional cheesecake (My favorite), apple cobbler, and mint cheesecake, Pecan pie just to name a few.  It was amazing food; I probably ate more in that sitting than I had in the last week combined. 

Of course this breakfast buffet is not cheap in about 20$ a person, but it is defiantly worth it once in a while if you are going for quantity or quality.  It would even be worth it if you do not intend to gorge yourself.  I will be going back again at some point.  It might have been a bad thing that my grandparent introduced me to this place.  It will take real self-control to not just wake up on Sunday morning and walk over to the inn. 

The Inn does more than just the Sunday brunch buffet.  There is breakfast lunch and dinner everyday if you would like which is of course amazing as well.  It is a nice option to have on campus if you are ever in the mode for a more upscale eating experience than the dinning halls or Panera.

PAS#4 Spring Break

This will have been my first blog post in a while, partly due to Spring break.  Spring break will be the subject of this post since it encompassed the last ten days for me.

As any college student I look forward to my breaks, especially spring break, because it offers a chance to get out of the cold wet north and head south, where I am from, for some better weather.  This year I headed way south all the way to West Palm Beach in Florida.  My good friend and I drove from my home in North Carolina, to West Palm to meet up with some family that has a house on the beach there. 

Before we had even arrived I was aware of the beautiful weather.  I had left a cold PA earlier that same morning which was a cool 40 degrees.  In Florida it was a sunny 80 degrees.  It was defiantly worth the drive for the weather.

Once we arrived we immediacy set out to go fishing on Lake Worth, we waded which is super fun in nice water.  That night we caught some pretty good sized snook.  Of course our real play was going fishing out in the ocean for sailfish, which can be caught year round right off the coast of west palm.  The reason is the Gulf Stream is the closest to the shore in west palm compared in anywhere else’s in the US.

The next day we went with my grandpa to his boat to go out into the ocean.  We could tell from the house that the water was really rough because the wind had picked up, but we decided to go out anyway.  As we cruised thought the intercostal water way we say there was a wind warning and 10-15 foot swells in the ocean.  Those are some pretty big waves even in a good size boat.  We went out and had some fun riding the waves but did not do any fishing because of the weather.  Unfortunately, the wind only got worse through the week so we had to find other things to do.

The next day my grandpa in an attempt to makeup for the bad weather took us around to all the exotic car sales places.  We went to three different one all of them where kinda disguised and all the cars where inside.  The first one we went to probably had 20 Ferraris and a mix of Lamborghinis, porches, and Mercedes.  There where a few cars that where one-million plus which was mind blowing.  The other places we went had a mix of cars but they were more focused on high-end luxury like Bentleys and Rolls Royce still really neat. 

The rest of break we hung out at the beach explored an island and even braved the stormy ocean again before heading home.  Expect we did not drive straight to NC we had to make a stop at the University of Florida.  

My twin sister is on the gymnastics team for UNC Chapel Hill and they were having a meet in Florida Friday night.  If you don’t know anything about gymnastics all you need to know is Florida is 3X’s in a row national Champions. It was a really cool meet to go to because not only in Florida really good but it was there last home meet of the season so the gym was packed. 

After the meet I hung out with my sister who has a different spring break than me so I would not have been able to see her any other way.  It was strange to meet my sister in Florida so far from home.  The rest of my spring break involved driving and flying back to Pennsylvania where we return to cold damp sunless weather.  Hopefully spring will show up soon. 

PAS#3: DEADPOOL

Just as I though that spring was around the corner, winter strikes back with a weekend in the single digits without, factoring in wind chill...yikes.  With weather like that I was definitely not planning any outdoor activities for the weekend.  So as Saturday past by and I was bored out of my mind, with nothing to do.  I remembered that the movie DEADPOOL had just opened Friday night and who does not love a super hero movie.

I had heard this would not be like any other super hero movies... the main character Deadpool was no superhero and it was almost a comedy.  How could marvel make a movie that is a comedy?  Well I decided to see for myself what this movie was all about. 

I called up my friend and we decided to go get dinner and head to the movie.

On Saturday my friend Cody and I went to a Piazza restaurant located along Atherton street, call FacciaLuna.  This is just one of the many pizza places located in State College.  It is one of my favorites, second to only a small place called OIP (Original Italian Piazza), in Millheim Pa.  One neat thing about Faccia Luna is that you can see the pizza cook in the back throwing the dough into the air, to make the pizza.  It is with amazing control and experience that these chefs do this, I have never seen them stretch the dough to thin or drop it. 

For lunch I order a specialty pizza called the Carciofi, which was topped with tomatoes, basil, and artichokes.  My friend went classic and order a plain cheese pizza.  The Pizza was great, much better than the dinning hall pizza.  We had to eat in a hurry though because our movie was showing at 6:00pm at the State College Premiere Theatre 12.  We had chosen to see “DEADPOOL”, and since it was opening week we decided it would be best to get there a little early, we wear right.

We sat down in the theater about thirty minutes early, but the theater was already beginning to feel crowded.  Overall the Movie was great. It certainly was an unorthodox superhero movie to say the least.  A whole lot of swearing and killing and sexual stuff.  It was pretty awesome there is no way you should let any kid under the age of 17 in to this movie though.  It was the, in terms of maturity level, the strongest “R” rated movie I have ever seen. 

The acting by Ryan Reynolds as DEADPOOL was great.  The comedy factor that this movie has was amazing.  IT is typical superhero fight scenes laced with well-timed comedic relief.  IT was a perfect blend of a say a Captain America and Will Rerrel Kevin Hart movie.   The execution of this movie was uniquely done in a way I have never seen before, which made it all that much better.  I suggest this movie to anyone who is a fan of super hero movie or comedy, it could stand alone in either genre. 

 

PAS#2: Hiking in the Snow

 

For this week passion blog I am actually going to talk about what I did two weekends ago when we had that little snowstorm.  For me I was expecting a lot worse, but when the snow was done on Saturday and the road cleared I headed out to go for a hike. 

About ten minutes drive from Penn State is a place called Shingletown.  It is named after the little town it is next too.  Shingletown is a series of trails located in Rothrock state forest. 

During the summer and warmer month I like to go running along these trails at Shingletown, it is a lot more engaging way of running than the monotony of running around a track.  Unfortunately, due to the weather I was regulated to hiking at Shingletown in the snow on this particular weekend.  Which was a very neat experience.

The first thing I noticed was how beautiful the forest was with the newly fallen snow being unmolested by animals or humans, while also veiling all the vegetation in the forest, everything was white.  Even though the snow had stopped, inside the forest it was still snowing as every little breeze of wind would blow some of the fresh snow out of the trees. 

The appearance of the environment was the real motivation for me to get out and hike the trails.  Even though I probably had hiked that area fifty times in my life everything seemed foreign to me.  I describe it as the feeling when fall comes and all the leaves fall of the trees, new things can be seen that were once hidden behind the leaves.  This change in environment always makes me feel like I am lost.  That is what I felt like while hiking. 

Asides from the wonders of fresh snow and the illusion of being lost hiking is really enjoyable as you are in a quiet peaceful place, a kind of solidarity that is hard to find on the bustling campus that is PSU.  If you live in Atherton you are constantly listening to the traffic along college Ave.  It is amazing how short a distance you have to travel to feel like you are completely alone...in a good way.

You are free from whatever worries you had throughout the week for as long and as far as you would like to go.  The rejuvenating effect for me is more than just mental though.  Even though hiking in snow is physically hard work.  I felt better and more energized during and after than I had all week.  

I highly recommend that everyone should make time to explore the surround area of State College; if hiking is not your thing there are plenty of other cool things to do in this area, if you are a fan of nature.

PAS#1: Returning to School

As I was sitting at home in the coastal region of North Carolina it occurred to me... Winter breaks ends in two days, and I leave for State College tomorrow.  This epiphany was full of mixed emotions, I love State College and the whole area but I also liked the sixty-degrees and sunny weather in North Carolina.  I knew State College had lucked out so far with a very mild winter, but I have never experienced a northern winter, so it still felt cold to me.  I knew eventually State Colleges luck would run out.  

I stepped out of my plan onto the flight deck at Harrisburg International airport the temperature was bellow freezing... big shock for me.  For my flight back to PSU I had to fly into Harrisburg, which is about two hours south of PSU because all the flights into the State College airports were booked- due to a bunch of other last minutes traveler heading back to PSU from winter break.

To my surprise when I arrived at PSU Sunday night there was still no snow to be seen.  Living in the south my whole life we would once in a while have a snow flurry but nothing would ever stick.  That would change on Tuesday when I experienced my first snow storm.  It was a pretty magnificent sight especially when the snow stopped falling and everything was covered in a white layer of unmolested snow.

The arrival of winter and snow has allowed skiing mountains to start making snow, which is something I am looking forward to trying. It is amazing how snow changes the look of your environment the same way fall does when all the tree lose their leaves.  I am always left feeling like I am lost, it can be in some place I have been a thousand time and everything just looks and feels different.  It will be fun to explore Central Pennsylvania with this new feeling of winter and at some point snow that will stick around. 

My Passion blog is about the activities I enjoy off the campus of Penn State.  As freshman college students at PSU we are all in a bubble I call college life.  We have almost everything we need on campus or downtown.  I explore what there is to do beyond the college bubble.  To me the surrounding area hear at PSU is such a fun place to explore with all the natural beauty one could ask for.  Most of my blog post are about outdoor activities. With the nature of the outdoor this time of year I will be having a lot of cold weather adventures.