"Freedom Behind Bars"

I wanted to give a brief rundown of what the Fourth of July looks like here at Institute. Rather than getting the day off, we had abbreviated sessions today, which began at the "late" hour of 8 AM and essentially ended with lunch. While the rest of Institute racked up a few extra hours of sleep, I decided to wake up at 6 AM to get in my run, so that my afternoon might be free for celebratory antics.

Those celebratory antics never really materialized, because after lunch everyone got right back to work, so I had little choice but to work, too. Finally around 4 PM, some SoDak corps members inaugurated our new tradition of beach volleyball. I quickly proved myself to be the least talented and most sweaty player on the court.

We broke for dinner off campus at a pub, and then rather than heading downtown for fireworks as I would've prefered, we returned to UH for more volleyball. I decided to sit this one out, and as a reward I was attacked by mosquitos--but just on my feet. I count over 40 bites on my left foot right now. Around 9:30 we decided to try to catch the fireworks from the roof of Moody Tower. Unfortunately, the accessible portion of the roof is a metal cage. Some sort of weather station, apparently. So we celebrated the birth of freedom from behind bars. The fireworks were pretty tiny and far away, and accompanied only by a tinny rendition of "Born in the USA" from one of our corp member's lap-tops. And a CMA came by and told us that we couldn't have beer on the roof. So much for freedom, right?