Er...
Okay I lied. Gone for the weekend. Sure to be stories later, if I ever catch up.
Friday, June 27, 2003
Cleary I'm Just...
Not very good at this whole blogging thing. I mean really, these gaps are getting ridiculous.
Luckily, it's because I've been doing things like actually going to class. I'll catch up on last week later today (no class so I'll sleep in, but eventually) and then more on this week at some point as well.
The good news is, I've actually been doing things other than sit in front of the computer! ;)
Not very good at this whole blogging thing. I mean really, these gaps are getting ridiculous.
Luckily, it's because I've been doing things like actually going to class. I'll catch up on last week later today (no class so I'll sleep in, but eventually) and then more on this week at some point as well.
The good news is, I've actually been doing things other than sit in front of the computer! ;)
Sunday, June 22, 2003
A Week Behind.
Okay so I've been shafting my blog lately, time to catch up.
The last few days at UCSB really were a whirlwind. I was pretty much either taking finals constantly, or cramming for them in between. The really wasn't any time to stop and smell the roses, or realize that the nine months of eternal bliss in probably the coolest place I have ever lived was coming to an end.
That Friday around 10am I was finally done, but I couldn't really share the feeling of euphoria shared by everyone else. Not to say I didn't try though. I spent much of the day helping people move out in various ways, either carrying their loads of stuff, debunking probably a dozen beds, or entertaining them while they packed. Eventually we got my bed down too, which left a nasty bruise on a friend due to a miscue. Felt pretty bad about that one. I was then motivated enough to start packing, and did get a bunch done the day before I was supposed to leave. That night though, I came across a list of things I had planned to do in college. Unfortunately even after a blast of an evening, some of the things on the list remain unaccomplished. I guess now that I'm going back temporarily though, you never really know. Unfortunately I can't go into detail about the contents of the evening, but it was definitely a night to remember.
The next morning for some reason I woke up around 9am, pretty astounding given how late I went to bed. I decided to get up anyway and get to work again, after a brief jaunt over to check out what the morning commencement ceremony looked like. Unluckyily for those graduates, it was about 9 million degrees finally, the one day when no one was at the beach. Black gowns do a nice job of baking in the sun.
I headed back to my room and decided to actually make an effort to sell a gigantic stack of books back from various quarters of the past few years. They ended up weighing about a hundred pounds (literally) and I could barely stuff them into my huge duffle bag. I went over expecting a whole lot of not much, just hoping I wouldn't have to carry that many back because they wouldn't take them due to a new edition or something. As it turned out, $265 later, with only 4 books that were all paperback in hand, I headed back quite the happy camper.
My parents later showed up which was nice, as my room had gotten into packable order and I just sort of handed them the keys pointed at a lot of stuff and left. I did have reason for doing so, my friend was collecting on a bet I'd lost (had to buy her ice cream). Eventually we got back through the mad traffic due to the first ceremony letting out and a second one coming in, and my family and I went to go get Freebirds. I thought the night before was my last ever, but turns out not only did I have some the next morning, but there'll be six weeks more of chances to down some tacos.
Eventually after fully packing the car and checking out completely (closing the door to a bare room you'll never see again is quite emotional for me, I lay on the floor beforehand and make carpet angels) I headed over to the Thunderdome about forty minutes late. As it turned out the whole thing was running late, so after basically a strip search to make sure I wasn't concealing anything there I was with hundreds of graduates milling about the basketball courts in their gowns and mortar boards. Why do they call them that anyway. So yeah I just sort of randomly joined a line, not seeing anyone I knew after a bit of wandering. Luckily however, one of the cooler people I know here spotted me at some point, clamped onto my wrist, and dragged me over to where she and her friends were situated. This made graduation a lot more fun for me, as having someone to talk to and reminisce with is always good.
A few minutes after four they marched us out, and this was actually the coolest part of the ceremony. I thought that we just came in on the sides or along the path by the lagoon or something, but as it turned out they marched us right down the middle from the back, so that the parents were fully lined up on either side of the fenced off pathway. Thus the infamous song was playing and hundreds of flashbulbs were going off, it was a real celebrity like feel as we made our way to our seats.
I ended up in like the 5th row, which was somewhat nice because it was only a few minutes into the name calling that I went up, but somewhat lame because there were like 45 more rows to sit through. Most of the graduates actually left after their name was called, I'd say there was like 1/4 of the people left by the time the ceremony was over. The speeches were overall pretty lame, and the main entertainment came from the beach balls and tortilla throwing. I had an incident where I got beaned in the back of the head with a beach ball, so I picked it up and stood up to launch it as far back into the crowd as possible, and instead mishit it and spiked it full speed about 5 feet behind me where it socked a girl two rows back right in the face. Oops. I sat down in a hurry as the crowd went "OHHHHHHH" and the speaker became confused.
We later finally did the moving your tassel across your cap thing and voila, I was graduated. Well not really, but at least Commencement was finished. There was mad picture taking, and a lot of goodbyes to people I potentially wouldn't be seeing again for an extensive period, which of course all became not so true. My usual line was "Don't say goodbye to me, say goodbye to my hair, I'll come back at some point, my hair won't."
We then went downtown to my mom's cousins mother or something's house for dinner, which was pretty fun since I'd never met her before and she spent a period telling me how handsome I was, or something, which is always good for ones ego. Eventually late that night we hit the road, which was sort of bittersweet, because I wasn't sure if I'd be driving back in to Santa Barbara any time soon. Again, all this was pointless, as I'm going back sometime tomorrow most likely.
Oh I almost forgot, the weekend before my friend from Stanford came down to visit, so I have to give her mad props as being one of only four people from high school in four years to visit me up there. We had a total blast, as we went hiking, gambling, beaching, eating, moviewatching, and overall just having a great time. Unfortunately this was during the weekend before finals, so I could have picked a slightly more convenient time for it, but I really can't complain given she did finally drive all the way down after I'd been at Stanford like five times over the last few years. She's always an entertaining person to hang out with, and I've known her since like third grade, so I'm sure we'll be arguing over the way things really happened in the past for some years to come.
So now I'm caught up through a week ago, when I arrived home and began the wait for grades. I did manage to do some very cool things this week, but I'll save those for tomorrow.
Okay so I've been shafting my blog lately, time to catch up.
The last few days at UCSB really were a whirlwind. I was pretty much either taking finals constantly, or cramming for them in between. The really wasn't any time to stop and smell the roses, or realize that the nine months of eternal bliss in probably the coolest place I have ever lived was coming to an end.
That Friday around 10am I was finally done, but I couldn't really share the feeling of euphoria shared by everyone else. Not to say I didn't try though. I spent much of the day helping people move out in various ways, either carrying their loads of stuff, debunking probably a dozen beds, or entertaining them while they packed. Eventually we got my bed down too, which left a nasty bruise on a friend due to a miscue. Felt pretty bad about that one. I was then motivated enough to start packing, and did get a bunch done the day before I was supposed to leave. That night though, I came across a list of things I had planned to do in college. Unfortunately even after a blast of an evening, some of the things on the list remain unaccomplished. I guess now that I'm going back temporarily though, you never really know. Unfortunately I can't go into detail about the contents of the evening, but it was definitely a night to remember.
The next morning for some reason I woke up around 9am, pretty astounding given how late I went to bed. I decided to get up anyway and get to work again, after a brief jaunt over to check out what the morning commencement ceremony looked like. Unluckyily for those graduates, it was about 9 million degrees finally, the one day when no one was at the beach. Black gowns do a nice job of baking in the sun.
I headed back to my room and decided to actually make an effort to sell a gigantic stack of books back from various quarters of the past few years. They ended up weighing about a hundred pounds (literally) and I could barely stuff them into my huge duffle bag. I went over expecting a whole lot of not much, just hoping I wouldn't have to carry that many back because they wouldn't take them due to a new edition or something. As it turned out, $265 later, with only 4 books that were all paperback in hand, I headed back quite the happy camper.
My parents later showed up which was nice, as my room had gotten into packable order and I just sort of handed them the keys pointed at a lot of stuff and left. I did have reason for doing so, my friend was collecting on a bet I'd lost (had to buy her ice cream). Eventually we got back through the mad traffic due to the first ceremony letting out and a second one coming in, and my family and I went to go get Freebirds. I thought the night before was my last ever, but turns out not only did I have some the next morning, but there'll be six weeks more of chances to down some tacos.
Eventually after fully packing the car and checking out completely (closing the door to a bare room you'll never see again is quite emotional for me, I lay on the floor beforehand and make carpet angels) I headed over to the Thunderdome about forty minutes late. As it turned out the whole thing was running late, so after basically a strip search to make sure I wasn't concealing anything there I was with hundreds of graduates milling about the basketball courts in their gowns and mortar boards. Why do they call them that anyway. So yeah I just sort of randomly joined a line, not seeing anyone I knew after a bit of wandering. Luckily however, one of the cooler people I know here spotted me at some point, clamped onto my wrist, and dragged me over to where she and her friends were situated. This made graduation a lot more fun for me, as having someone to talk to and reminisce with is always good.
A few minutes after four they marched us out, and this was actually the coolest part of the ceremony. I thought that we just came in on the sides or along the path by the lagoon or something, but as it turned out they marched us right down the middle from the back, so that the parents were fully lined up on either side of the fenced off pathway. Thus the infamous song was playing and hundreds of flashbulbs were going off, it was a real celebrity like feel as we made our way to our seats.
I ended up in like the 5th row, which was somewhat nice because it was only a few minutes into the name calling that I went up, but somewhat lame because there were like 45 more rows to sit through. Most of the graduates actually left after their name was called, I'd say there was like 1/4 of the people left by the time the ceremony was over. The speeches were overall pretty lame, and the main entertainment came from the beach balls and tortilla throwing. I had an incident where I got beaned in the back of the head with a beach ball, so I picked it up and stood up to launch it as far back into the crowd as possible, and instead mishit it and spiked it full speed about 5 feet behind me where it socked a girl two rows back right in the face. Oops. I sat down in a hurry as the crowd went "OHHHHHHH" and the speaker became confused.
We later finally did the moving your tassel across your cap thing and voila, I was graduated. Well not really, but at least Commencement was finished. There was mad picture taking, and a lot of goodbyes to people I potentially wouldn't be seeing again for an extensive period, which of course all became not so true. My usual line was "Don't say goodbye to me, say goodbye to my hair, I'll come back at some point, my hair won't."
We then went downtown to my mom's cousins mother or something's house for dinner, which was pretty fun since I'd never met her before and she spent a period telling me how handsome I was, or something, which is always good for ones ego. Eventually late that night we hit the road, which was sort of bittersweet, because I wasn't sure if I'd be driving back in to Santa Barbara any time soon. Again, all this was pointless, as I'm going back sometime tomorrow most likely.
Oh I almost forgot, the weekend before my friend from Stanford came down to visit, so I have to give her mad props as being one of only four people from high school in four years to visit me up there. We had a total blast, as we went hiking, gambling, beaching, eating, moviewatching, and overall just having a great time. Unfortunately this was during the weekend before finals, so I could have picked a slightly more convenient time for it, but I really can't complain given she did finally drive all the way down after I'd been at Stanford like five times over the last few years. She's always an entertaining person to hang out with, and I've known her since like third grade, so I'm sure we'll be arguing over the way things really happened in the past for some years to come.
So now I'm caught up through a week ago, when I arrived home and began the wait for grades. I did manage to do some very cool things this week, but I'll save those for tomorrow.
