In a scant two months, I'll be up to my eyeballs (6' above sea level) in cool tech and like-minded people at BSU. I'm very excited about starting school and a new job. I haven't really felt like this in a long while, this anticipation of something good and meaningful. There isn't a whole lot of that to be found in this town.

One bonus to this is that I get a new mascot. You see, for four years I grit my teeth under the yoke of being a "Cougar." Other Catholic universities get cool mascots, like the "Fighting Irish", or the "Saints." They get thematic monikers, we get an endangered species of cat that preys on weak livestock and gets caught in traps set by dairy farmers. I did my best to avoid any merchandise with the mascot logo on it, as it looked like something a high school would put on a gym floor to hide water damage. I bought a Franciscan cross in Asisi so that I would have an appropriate symbol of my alma mater and not an athletic logo. Besides, the actual school seal has two hands with stigmata. That would look pretty hard-core on a football uniform, don't you think? Imagine this on a field:

Visitor: "We're the Bulldogs! See this logo? We're the Bulldogs! What's that on your logo?"

USF: "We're USF- our logo has the divine blood of the saints flowing from hands crossed over an old Roman execution device that became the religious icon that our school is founded on."

Visitor: "You guys are messed up. We're gonna get killed."

No, alas, "Cougars" won out. But how is a Cardinal any better? Well, to it's credit, it is the state bird. It isn't particularly frightening, unless directed by Alfred Hitchcock, but it's loads better than some of the alternatives.