Things are definitely starting to wind down, although there's still plenty to do. Today's highlights:

• Slept in until 10:30... although since I was up until 4am, that was only 6.5 hours of sleep.
  
• After an early lunch, went to a meeting about my loans. After that, turned in some paper work with financial aid, and a petition to transfer one of my courses.
  
• Went to an UT informational session. It's funny because theater people are the same everywhere... it's scary almost. This bunch reminded me of the group I was in in Japan, which, despite it being something that reminds me of Japan isn't a bad thing. Pete, my host from my over-night visit, is designing lights for a show and is apparently looking for a ME (Master Electrician). Not sure if I'll have time, but I might be interested (if nothing else, I'll go help hang lights).
  
• Took a tour of the Rockefeller Chapel tower, which included up close and personal views of various parts of the carillon (the musical bell things), which is actually the second largest in the country, and the largest one built in a single installation (the largest carillon is in New York). The largest of the 70 bells weighs 18.5 tons, and all but the 6 largest bells are actually manually operated by the player. The actual console used for playing looks somewhat like an organ, but instead of keys, there are huge foot pedals and handles that the player literally bangs with a fist. The six largest bells are run by an air-powered system. Again, I took pictures, but I'm too lazy to put them up on the site... Another interesting tidbit is that the whole thing is tuned to A-flat. Unlike most other instruments, you can't really tune a carillon. Instead, when the largest carillon is cast, it is tuned to whatever note happens to be closest, and all subsequent bells are created to be in tune with that first bell. That's why carillons almost always sound "out of tune".
  
• After dinner, there was a "Aim of Education" address. Personally, I didn't find the speech to be provocative, inspirational, educational, or anything else and seemed a bit too bland. After that, we went back to the RH's apartment for a discussion session, and that ended up lasting 5 hours (at least for Peter and I who stayed until the end) instead of the alloted 2 (most of us were initially planning on going to the movie in the quads at 10pm). Although, I think we only talked about the speech for an hour and a half... after that, we got into a heated debate on national identity. Now that I think of it, I think I started it (oops) and I didn't even get my point across until long after most people left.