Yay Homecoming...not

Funny how easy it is to not update the ol blog. Hazing was pretty nuts. Well, first, all the swimmers went to Pirate Night, which was a banquet full of rich people who auctioned several, overpriced items for our benefit. There, we cleaned up the rich peoples’ dinners. On our way back, Aaron’s car stopped at Safeway to buy some fruit, because each person needed a fruit for the evening. I bought a cantaloupe.

We arrived at the pool a little late, but it’s okay, because we were made to wait around for 30 minutes anyways. When Dan showed up, he first gave us a disclaimer and offered a way out if we didn’t want to do something so that it wasn’t REALLY hazing. Then, he yelled at us for a while and had us leapfrog to the baseball field, which was kinda far. Then we had to carry Austin to “Touchdown Jesus” which is a statue by the football field. Then, we turned our sweatshirts around, lined up with hands on each other’s shoulders, put our hoods over our faces, and were guided around for a while.

When we finally got somewhere, we spun around then lined up again and walked some more. We finally arrived at the bottom of this huge sandy hill. We had to climb it while staying connected to each other. It was kinda hard but not too bad. After we all made it to the top, we were taught the team cheers. Then it was back with the hoods, more walking, and then we were all shoved into cars.

The drivers cranked up the heat, drove around for 15 minutes, then brought us into a basement. There, we removed our shirts and received frosh names, unceremoniously sharpied on our chests. Mine was “frosh if you like it put a ring on it”.

Remember how I told you about Morgan the cutie pie girl I taught for swim lessons? Well, someone was like, “Andrew, your girl for lessons is sooo cute!” And I’m all like, “I know right? I’ll probably marry her. I can wait 13 years!” So that’s kinda creepy, but that’s how I earned my name. Please don’t think less of me.

After this, we drove back to campus, which was only 30 seconds away since the earlier 15 minute car drive was in circles around the campus. We went behind the pool building, where we met the girls to share our names with them and to teach the freshmen girls our cheers.

After that, the girls left, and the guys stayed to do some more random crap. We did an egg toss, burst balloons with our bodies, (some people) put on frozen T-shirts, and that was it. Notice that this whole time, we never did anything with our random fruits. I carried that cantaloupe around for 4 hours. I was so mad at it, that I threw it on the ground and cursed its existence.

I was freezing, so I sprinted back, then slowed down because I’m out of shape, jogged the rest of the way, and took a hot shower and went to bed. On Saturday we woke up early to see Kevin Wang’s hall of fame induction, which was pretty special because that dude is a beast. Then there was the alumni meet.

The alumni meet has a rich tradition of the alumnic always winning through various methods of cheating. For the most part, all they did was false starts, freestyle instead of other strokes, relays during individual events, and really, really false relay starts.  It was a good time though. Some of those old guys can still swim really fast.

As I returned to BJ from the pool to take a nap and rest my weary body, some guys were like hey, you should body paint for the football game! And I’m like nooookay! So I watched half of the football game, which they won, then watched some soccer, which they tied. After that I went back to BJ and made some more crappy banana bread and I was so mad that it didn’t turn out well, you have no idea. Then I did laundry.

That evening was the homecoming dance, which I didn’t go to because I was just so tired and I don’t like dances that much any more unless I have sufficient dancing energy. Instead, I went to the bonfire for prime time and after about an hour I got dragged away by some swimmers to go star tripping. Star tripping is fun.

I went to bed and slept for a while.

Sunday, I went to church again, ate chili again (YUM), and did some studying and stuff. I can’t remember what else I did. Nothing spectacular.

On Monday, I went to the trainer to get some stuff done for my pec. I heated it, stretched, did some range of motion exercises, and did some stretch cord exercises. I’ll be doing this every day for the next few weeks. Also, I need to arrange to get some deep-tissue muscle massages twice a week which I’m kind of excited for.

Today there was a calc test which I’m pretty sure I dominated, and there’s a lecture exam in bio Friday which I’m not too worried about. I’m still worried about chem though, so I think I’ll have a chat with the professor tomorrow.

I Gotta Feelin'

Today is such a good day. But first I’ll talk a little bit about yesterday.

Well, I started to do all kinds of pain and I started to feel all kinds of pain in my pec. Just kidding, it wasn’t that bad, but I started to feel the strain a little early on into the practice so I hopped out and did about 20 minutes of squats,  lunges, and abs nonstop while everyone did that plus the swimming part of the set. The all kinds of pain set was 30 x 100 swimming at about 90 percent effort. The rest between each 100 was a dryland exercise. The first was 25 abs, the next was 10 block pullups, then 25 abs, then 10 pushups or dips, then 10 lunges or squats. Repeat six times. Not gonna lie, it looked pretty fun.

Anyways, I got some ice and went back to the pool to watch for awhile and wait to teach my lesson. I forgot if I mentioned this earlier or not, but our team fund raiser is swim lessons, just like we did for our high school team. I had a cute little 5 year old girl named Morgan, and she is so cute! I taught her for 30 minutes Monday through Thursday and she went from not even being able to put her face in the water to swimming a 200 butterfly. Just kidding, but she did show a lot of progress. She was able to jump in and pop up all by herself by the end though, and her mom was pretty happy so I done good.

After lessons and dinner, we had our sports physicals which was a huuuuuuuge pain. It was two hours of sitting around and getting different measurements and tests and stuff. I’m kinda stoked because my wingspan was 6’4” which is apparently “abnormally long” and means I could grow taller! Then I got a hernia check cough cough which is always awkward.

Let’s see, then I procrastinated on homework from about 8 til 12, then I did some, and went to bed.

Today I’m going to visit Cheree, our trainer, to have my pec evaluated. Now it’s legal since I’ve had my physical. I’m also not going to swim today because rest makes it feel awesome, but I’ll probably lift.

Oh right, here’s why this morning was phenomenal. I’m not one to brag, but I’m going to really quick, so brace yourselves. I scored a 100 on my first chem test, and this girl who I’ve been corresponding with about banana bread gave me like half of a loaf of her finest make. It is SO good. But, and I’m sorry Theresa, I think Nathan Freier has the best recipe out there, and it is now in the cusp of my authority. (I’m not sure if that makes sense but I just wanted to use the word cusp) Tomorrow I plan on making some and I’m really excited for that.

Tomorrow is also the Alumni meet, which shall be interesting to say the least, and tonight is hazing. Very nice!

Banana Bread Love

Yeah this week has been pretty average I’d say. I got sick a few days ago which is really annoying. I’ve been popping Echinacea pills every now and then but I really, truly believe that it’s not doing anything.

On Tuesday, all new students (with the exception of those who slept in) took part in Community Building Day, which was about as fun as it sounds. It was dumb because we had to wake up soooo early to make it to our first-year seminar groups at 8. We all hopped onto our buses, and there were a lot of buses. It was about a 15 minute drive, and I think the driver got lost twice which is kind of embarrassing, and then we got dropped off in some random alley in a slightly-less-than-upper-middle-class part of town. Someone said we were “going to some sketch place to pick up trash” and that was about one eighth a true statement.

This cowboy dude who I’m just going to call “Doc” was there to tell us what to do. There were about 40 or so on our bus and we split into groups of four-ish and took different roads off the main street, along with short segments of Main Street. We were to pick up trash and generally clean up the roads and sidewalks.

My group took a road, and we started sweeping leaves and dirt off the curb. I was like, seriously?! We’re sweeping dirt off the ground!?? But whatever, I did it with a cheesy, fake smile on my face. Actually I was probably scowling because I was tired and sick.

The roads were actually pretty clean to begin with. The area, called Hillyard, had received a $17 million grant that they used to redo the streets and sidewalks so it was all in all a pretty nice area. There was still a fair amount of litter though, and as we walked down Main Street, we found this alley with like a billion cigarette butts, and we picked up all of those butts. Hopefully the hooligans that smoke in that alley will note the err of their ways after seeing this new cleanliness and will stop tossing their butts where they please. But that probably won’t happen.

Doc stopped by our group twice in all of his cowboy glamour, and gave us donuts and muffins and water and stories. He’s basically like the sheriff and self-proclaimed town dude who gives kids lollipops and makes small talk to every resident. He has a Ferris wheel. And a really old building.

After that, I had swimming and lab. Wednesday was boring, except that we made banana bread for the first time. Aaron drove us to the store to get ingredients, oh and I also replenished my snack stock. When we made the bread, it was gone in one minute within taking it out of the oven. I was like what the heck. It wasn’t that good anyways, so I think that next time (tonight), we’re going to add one more banana and cook it for less time. I’m pretty excited.

Another interesting thing was “fake out make out”, which was the prime time event. There were a few sheets of plexiglass, and the RAs would spread peanut butter or nutella on either side, and two people would have to lovingly eat it off of there. I was forced into it twice, and it was extremely awkward. So awkward. Wow.  Tasty though, and fun to watch. But wow.

Today we have a set at practice that is called all kinds of pain. Fun. I have a lab right now. Tomorrow the freshmen swim boys are getting hazed. Sweet. Ta ta for now (TTFN).

Good news!

This post is going to be quite short. I'm really excited because over the weekend, my pec started feeling alot better, and today, i was able to do 9 200s pretty hard and they all felt good! Nobody probably cares but I'm really happy and excited about it. Is anyone even reading about my life anymore? Oh well, it's still like a journal.

Rainy Weekend

Saturday. Weekend. Time to sleep in and not do much else. Which is what I did. Actually, the team had “team-building” in the afternoon, so I guess that counts for something. I rolled out of bed at about 10:30 and Korey and I grabbed breakfast before the BBQ. I had a huge breakfast, including pancakes, eggs, a biscuit, and copious amounts of fruit. Then we walked over to the pool for the BBQ.

On a quick side note, I realize that my grammar hasn’t been shiny or polished, but I’m just writing how I think and talk. That may also explain why some things you read on my blog make absolutely no sense.

Anyways, after waddling over to the pool all plumped up from breakfast, we had the BBQ, which wasn’t really a BBQ but rather was an enormous order of pizzas. Even though I was entirely bloated, the pizza smelled SO good, so I had a piece. Actually two. And a ton of veggies. Then, Steve made a speech to get us jacked for the season before we did teambuildings.

For teambuilding, we first did a little icebreaker/fun fact type activity, and then we went outside to do a more challenging activity. All of the freshmen and transfers (which, I think the only transfer is Austin but I could be wrong) went to one side of the rope, and everyone else stood on the other. This rope, however, was about six feet off the ground. All of us noobies had to cross to the other side while touching each other. The older kids helped us bodysurf the first few people over, and then we continued doing that until there were three left. Actually, we failed two times by touching the rope, so this whole event took close to 30 minutes. I was one of the last four people, and I got surfed over, and then two people boosted over the third whilst touching feet with freshmen on the other side. The last two people required assistance from people on the crossed side, and then everyone was happy, yay.

That was the official end of team building, but then a bunch of people decided that we should play lap tag. I had never heard of this game, and I wish I had because it is actually really fun. Basically, everyone pairs up and one person sits in front of the other, except for one person who is alone. That person calls the names of two people who are in front of their partner. These people must race to get to the lone person, while their partner has to try to stop them. If these people are having great difficulty, the lone person may call others to try to race over. Then it starts all over again. It’s basically an excuse to wrestle. We played for like two hours! So we finished, grabbed some of the extra pizzas, then headed back.

Korey and I finally got our fridge right after that, and we also had gotten our couch the day before (did I already mention that?). However, we had to wait a day to plud in the fridge for some reason, so we let the pizza sit out for awhile and it got pretty stanky in our room. It’s okay now though, it’s in the fridge and it’s chilled.

To celebrate the previously mentioned event of getting a couch, we had a movie night with some people on Friday.

Saturday night, some of the swimmers though it would be fun to “do downtown”, which initially meant to go get dessert somewhere and check out some shops. What ended up happening was kind of similar.

About twelve of us freshmen piled into two different cars, and used Vegas’ iPhone directions to get us to this place called the Chocolate Apothecary, which was supposed to be the best dessert place in town. Also, nobody in the group was from the area, and Spokane is a big city.

We eventually found this place called the Flour Mill, which was this three story shopping center. From the outside though, it looked like some weird restaurant, because the top floor was at ground level and the other stories went downwards. Inside the Flour Mill was the Chocolate Apothecary, and guess what, it wasn’t open Saturdays and it was only open until like 7 most other nights. Riddle me this, what kind of dessert place is closed at what would be the most popular times?!?!!?!?!

Anywho, we googled the next popular dessert places, and discovered that Baskin Robbins and DQ were the next hottest locations. We decided to go ahead and pass on those options and instead, we attempted to navigate towards the mall area. We found a parking space, and walked down the sidewalk until we discovered this fancy pants restaurant that was actually too expensive for us, so we left. As we kept walking, we discovered this little coffee shop that we decided would be good enough. They had decent desserts I suppose; I got chocolate cake. It was okay.

When we left, we had no idea what we were doing, but we walked into this big six-story shopping mall. Actually, the top three stories were all dedicated to the movie theater. It was still pretty big though, with a lot of escalators. On a whim, we decided to watch a movie called The Town, which I wouldn’t recommend watching. Apparently it has good ratings, but not from this guy. The ending reminded me of the movie “Logan’s War”, if anybody has seen that, which I doubt anybody has except for James or Mitch. Or Teddy maybe?

After that, we ventured back home. However, we split off in a different direction from the lead vehicle because, apparently, we were going on an adventure at 12 o clock. Oh yeah, and I was sitting in the trunk because the car was overloaded. This adventure included flying over this huge construction bump in the road, which gave me like a foot of air and a concussion/spine fracture. After taking a few random turns and going straight on this one road for like fifteen minutes, during which the driver thought she should have turned on a couple of roads but whimsically decided not to, we somehow came to Whitworth. It was seriously the craziest thing ever. It was so surprising. We’re driving, and all of a sudden we were there without even trying to be. It was a miracle.

Yeah, then I went to bed.

The next day, I tried out this other church, and I really liked it. It smelled really good like candles and cinnamon and stuff. The style of it all was pretty comfortable too. I like!

Oh, going back, another thing that happened Saturday was that we had a small group meeting with our small group leader. I should explain. So, a few weeks ago, I filled out a sheet saying I wanted to do be in a bible study, and so did the other guys that I am now in a small group with. So we met up and decided we’re gonna go through Ephesians and maybe a C.S. Lewis book, meeting Sundays at 2. Cool beans.

Yeah but then Sunday, I can’t remember what else happened because nothing else really did. I lifted. My pec feels pretty good right now.

Quick shout out to Quinn Mason. She is going to produce and direct really famous movies one day. George Lucas and James Cameron will be inferior beings compared to the works that she will masterfully piece together. And she has brown hair, and uhhh she goes to USC. Shout out over.

This week might be boring, but some fun stuff might happen too. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Oh hey

I love Calc II. Not because math is so cool and stuff, which I don’t believe, but because of the people in it. There are often several kinds of people in a class: brown-nosers, quiet geniuses, people who just want to sit there and learn, people who don’t want to really learn, and people who sincerely believe that they know more than their teachers. The last category I mentioned is my favorite and is what makes class so entertaining. I won’t mention names, but if you’re reading this, you know who are you are and I love you for how you are. Once again, I don’t want to poke fun, but seriously kid, the most complicated answer is almost always not the best answer, and is rarely even correct. Okay, enough about that.

Time is flying by really quickly. It’s only been 2 weeks, but at the same time, WOW it’s already been two weeks?!? The days fly by so fast because there is so much free time! Yesterday, I’m pretty sure I sat at my computer for 30 minutes just spacing out and listening to music, but I don’t really remember doing that, but I think it happened.

This weekend should be fun, there are a few activities going on, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll ACTUALLY get the couch and fridge…it keeps getting postponed. I know I just posted a post like a few hours ago but here’s another. Think of it as a nice little extra treat specially delivered from me <3.
 

Shower Time

Rather than go over all of my boring schedule ALL of the time, I’m going to focus in on specific things about living in a college, specifically at Whitworth, in addition to adding in some interesting things that happen. Also, since everyone I tell about my blog is always like WAH WAH YOUR BLOG IS SO LONG AND I CAN’T READ THAT MUCH, I’m going to keep the posts shorter…maybe….sort of.

Okay a huge moth just flew in and I totally destroyed it with Korey’s sandal.

Anyways, this morning, I was inspired to write about the showers. I remember my first public shower. Actually, I don’t, but I remember my first shower of gym class my freshman year of high school. I was so afraid of my new man’s body and the power it contained (I don’t know what that even means, but it’s a way of saying I was really self-conscious). But anyways, it was so awkward for me showering by other guys who weren’t wearing clothes either.

By the time I got to my sophomore year, I joined the Bay Port cross-country team, which basically destroyed any issues I had about self-confidence. I will spare the details, but basically, being naked was as natural as not being naked and peeing on other people’s legs was okay.

So college. We’re all young men who are no longer ashamed of our bodies (for the most part), so showering isn’t a big deal, plus the showers are in stalls and not in an open space. In the bathroom there are five showers. So, on an average morning, I’ll grab my clothes, towel, and showering gear, and pick a shower, close the first curtain, hang my stuff over the bar, turn on the shower, and close the second curtain as I soak up the warm water. Ahhhh, privacy.

Then I turn to my right and make awkward eye contact with somebody else who is showering a few stalls over. Oh. The separating walls are only about 5’ 8”. That sucks.

The key with that is to just look down the whole time. But the eye contact is still bound to happen every now and then. On a different note, prime time last night was prison tats, and I got a really gangsta tat on my side. It’s a really beautiful flower! Shout out to Bethany. I also wanted a unicorn on my shoulder and a butterfly tramp stamp, but I couldn’t find anyone who was a good artist because all of the good artists all had sore hands. I ended up giving a few brothas some sweet tats though.

I had bio lab yesterday, and that was really, really long but now I feel like I’m getting a good grasp on the material. Between the lab and periodic studying, I feel like getting to know the biology material hasn’t been too hard. Chemistry is a whole different story. We sort of flew through the first three chapters by going through a roughly thrown-together powerpoint with little explanation, and we keep getting assignments that have ambiguous due dates. Hopefully we slow down once we’re caught up, whatever caught up is.

I hope you enjoyed reading that random jumble of thoughts.

Getting in the Groove

Okay it’s been a long time since I’ve written a post (like four days! Sorry!!!).

So apparently Sunday was pillow talk, and I ended up going wearing my new cloud snuggie! My sister Jojo made fun of me for getting one but it turns out that they actually ARE really cool and stylish, I knew it. The only thing is that it smells like chili or something because I haven’t washed it since opening it. Anyways, there were like 30 or 40 people squished into a big circle in the lounge, sharing first kiss stories, prom experiences, stalker exes, worst injuries, and other similar topics. I told a few things, the juiciest being the story of Kayla, my first true love. I knew when I first laid eyes on her at the age of 2 that she was the one for me. Anyways, more details on that if you ask me about it sometime.

Wow my memory really fails me. Classes happened again on Monday and I was stressing over some things like homework or studying or whatever but nothing’s been too overwhelming. We started swimming on Monday too, and that was the beginning of something I’ve experienced many times. It’s called getting back into shape. When I jumped in, my legs were like dragging on the bottom and I was pulling like one molecule of water with each stroke. Anyways, I didn’t swim that much since I’m still healing my pec strain. Don’t be worried though because it feels like its pretty much almost healed. So I swam for like an hour, then got out and had a bag of ice awkwardly saran-wrapped to me by a trainer. I say it was awkward because in order to get the plastic all around me she was basically giving me an extended, plasticy hug.

As cool (pun intended) as it was to walk around with a shoulder that looked like I was part Hulk, it was annoying that I had to tell the story 100 times that my pec was a little injured but it wasn’t a big deal. And it’s not a big deal so don’t worry!

Oh yeah I know what else happened Monday! I got a care package from mommy! I got wheat thins and peanut butter cracker sandwiches and peanut butter pretzel sandwiches and thank you notes and my hat and my gloves and hugs and kisses. And I skyped with mommy and daddy and ceci (my stupid, stupid, but SO cute dog), and snobells (my fat, awesome, cuddly, cute, and decaying 14-year-old cat).

Later that night, I went to check out a bible study with AJ. I’m not sure if I mentioned him before but he lives a few rooms down and he’s white but Hispanic too, so he puts his race as Hispanic or Latino whenever he can to get benefits. Isn’t that awesome? Anyways, we couldn’t find the study for like 10 minutes but then we found it and met some of the people. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it there weekly and homework won’t be too overwhelming. I just felt kind of stupid because we are going to do the study on the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, and he kept asking all of these questions about bible history as an intro. He was like “how many brothers did he have” and “what was his name” and “what year was oil invented” and “when did so-and-so do this” and other questions that some people whipped out the answers to! It’ll definitely be a learning experience for me.

Tuesday wasn’t so bad except that I had morning class again. After calc, I did a lot of homework through the morning and then Amanda was like, “hey, you should do calc in the afternoon” and I’m all like, “woah, if I do that, that means no 8am classes, meaning I can eat breakfast when swim starts!” So I spent a good hour running around to get different sheets and signatures to make the switch. Awesome. Then I had seminar at 2:20 during which I almost lost consciousness because it was so boring and pointless. Then I swam again. Then I iced more. Then I ate. Then I had freakin chem lab which was soooo boring. We went over minute safety details for over an hour then spent half an hour making sure we had everything in our drawers. On the bright side, we got out an hour early.

Later that night was this thing called Hosanna, which is just a collection of students in the chapel for worship. It was so cool! Everyone sang so loud and the song selection was good. By the end of that it was pretty late so I went back, finished homework, then checked out for the night.

The next morning, Korey didn’t hear his alarm, so he woke up just in time to be 3 minutes late for his Greek…oops. Then I got to sleep a little longer and went through all my classes. Tuesday through Thursday this week is a poster sale in the HUB so I went there after Calc to get lunch and some posters to decorate our room with! I got a really big one of clear water, palm trees, and a hammock, one with a tiny monkey on somebody’s hand, and posters from House and Heroes. Now the room is a little bit less boring. I think tomorrow we’ll get the couch and fridge finally! After we get those, our room will be mostly complete. Mwahahaha. Everything else is going well, I hope everyone reading this is doing well too!! If I haven’t talked to you in a while it’s because, as you can see, I’ve been kept busy. Call/text/e-mail/snail mail/ skype/visit/facebook me!

Sundae Sunday! (and chili)

Hello readers of mine life! Yesterday was Saturday and it was pretty full of activities and funness. We woke up, ate delicious French toast and eggs, and then went to the pool to meet for cliff jumping. It was maybe about a 30 minute drive there so it wasn’t bad at all. Once we had gotten lost deep within the mountains we parked and took a short hike down a rocky and slipperyish path with the 40-some swimmers who decided to attend.

After stumbling over some rocks in my flippy floppys, we made it to the little cliff, which was 20-25 feet.  I was kinda scared because it was my first time and my only previous experience was jumping off a 5 meter at UWGB. I just ran and hurled my body off the edge and screamed kinda loud, but I landed okay. Then I went off again and screamed less that time. After that and watching several others jump off and land on their backs, fronts, faces, etc, about half the team decided it was time to man up and take it to the next level.

After another short, rocky hike, we made it to the top of big mama. Big mama was big and high (about 60 feet) and stuff and I was so scared. I got down on all fours and crawled slowly to the edge to peer over and I actually peed a little. That’s girly but whatever. So Austin, one of the transfers on the team, decided to be the first one to go. After about five minutes of deliberation on the edge of the cliff, along with cheers and jaunts from the team, he jumped, and I got goosepimples!!! Then three more guys went off a little more hastily, and I decided that I would simply not do the disservice to myself of looking over the edge before I went. Oh, and before I went, some guys told me to yell “frosh power” because its tradition, so I did. So anyways, I got a running start. I ran, I jumped, I regretted.

I’m going to run through this in slow motion. I took three steps, since I was about five feet from the edge. With a powerful launch from my hindlegs, I rocketed my body into the open air. Gusts of cold wind rippled across my body as the sun gleamed off my bronzed, toned, abdominals. I looked below and saw the specks that were the heads of the watching swimmers at the bottom who were too fearful and timid to conquer big mama. I saw the trees that were mere toothpicks on the other side of the lake. Most importantly, I saw the water as it accelerated towards me at 9.8 m/s^2. At first I was like, oh, this isn’t so bad, you know, it’s like 0 gravity and I’m just chilling. Then as I fell and got faster and faster I was terrified. At about 10 feet away from impact I wanted to go back. Then I hit.

My entrance wasn’t so bad; my hands were totally numb and my elbows had smacked the water pretty hard but at least I didn’t land on my butt or back or face or die.

After everyone was done jumping off rocks, we all returned to the campus. It was the nicest day of the week, besides Sunday, but it was still kinda cold and breezy up high so I was chilled. We got back at about 2:30 and had a late lunch. They had tomato basil soup and hot chocolate so that warmed me up quite well. Then I took a hot shower because I was still cold and that was also really nice.

After those events, Korey and I helped Rory and a bunch of guys move a hot tub to his backyard and then we went to Target to get a few things. The most important purchase we made was three more sweet, cheap rugs to “carpet” our room. We also got some really awful, hideous Hawaiian shirts at TJ Max for the beach-themed swim team party that night.

By the time we got back from shopping it was time to get dinner and then get ready to go to Austin’s house for the social gathering. As we waited for Rory to come get us outside, we had to explain to like 30 people why we looked fashion-retarded, but I think they still thought we were special anyways.

At the party I sang my little heart out and played my little heart out on the drums on Rock Band for X-Box. I also met a few people that I hadn’t met yet so that was nice. And no, there was no alcohol!

When we got back at like 11, there were some folks walking out from BJ and they said they were gonna go walk around, so we were like “what the hey” and followed them. So that was pretty pointless but I got to flaunt my Hawaiian gear. We accidentally lost Korey at Arend (a dorm) but he was chilling with swimmers so it was okay. Then when I got back to BJ I chilled with a bunch of cool cats.

Now I’m going to give a shout out to Dani Dellavella, AKA Reno, because she asked me too, but I probably wasn’t supposed to mention that. She has a really cool last name and she’s from Reno, Nevada (duh). And I was supposed to tell her not to procrastinate today and put my speech on here that I prepared for her to not procrastinate, but I actually didn’t make a speech. Oops.

I went to bed after that, and then woke up to the Pokémon theme song as my alarm at 8:30 to go to church with a bunch of people. It was pretty good but I’m gonna church hop for a few weeks/months/years/decades til I decide on one. Then uhhh I guess I pretty much did some homework and lifted and ate and stuff and now I’m not doing anything, but for prime time there’s pillow talk! I don’t know what that is but it sounds cute. 

I Need More Sleep

I will sum up most of my social experiences thus far by saying that I have been meeting numerous people every day and am remembering more and more people and faces and names and beginning to develop deeper relationships with a lot of the people who I initially may never have thought I would end up being buds with.

On Thursday morning I went to get breakfast with one of my new friends, Kelsey, because she and I had morning class and nobody else we knew did. So that was nice, you know, we got to know each other a little better, and our classes were in the same building. Well, I got there and my classroom was empty. I was seriously 98% sure that I had class Monday through Thursday. Upon inspecting my syllabus outside the building before making any rash decisions, I learned that class was, in fact, mon-wed and fri. Dag, yo.

However, this was sort of nice. It meant that I had all day to do whatever I pleased since normally I would have a lab but this week there are no labs. At 11 there was an assembly for convocation, which was an inspiring speech by the president about taking courageous steps forward and stuff like that. It was good, but boring in all honesty. Oh, and since we had to write an essay on the assembly for seminar, I took notes. After that, I had lunch, and then hit the laptop (rather than books). I wrote the convocation essay, which is due next Tuesday, and finished the summer reading. Go me!

Funny thing about those assignments though. Right now it’s 1 am and the summer reading was due by like midnight on Friday, so that makes me a little late, BECAUSE, I submitted the essay and summer assignment today at like noon via e-mail, but it was stuck in my outbox rather than my sent box for whatever reason. I thought that since it was in the outbox that meant that it was in a box, with e-mails, that were out. So then I sent another identical e-mail just now to be safe, and then the one in my outbox sent! So I’ll be super mad if points are deducted, but I think Margo is a pretty nice lady so I don’t think it should be a big deal.

Anyways, the rest of Thursday was kind of really lame. Since all my homework was done I wanted to hang and chill and meet people and stuff but then everyone else was doing all of their homework! So I was bored for awhile. Then at night we played screaming ninja for prime time (which is a time set aside at 8-11pm every night for doing fun activities) and I went to a horrible, awful, terrible athletic code meeting where we learned not to get concussions or do drugs OR ELSE. It was really horrible.

After that meeting, I was so tired and angry that I had to sit through it (actually I wasn’t that angry, just sort of in a not-really-angry sort of way), that I was ready to crash into bed. Little did I know that Korey and I would receive visitors in our little corner room! Yeah this girl and two guys wandered in and we had a lovely conversation til maybe like 12:30 then we finally got to bed and then woke up at 7 on Friday for class. The silver lining is that I actually had class that morning.

Friday was cool I guess, calc was pretty simply stuff, we started learning stuff that I already learned in AP bio last year in biology, and in chemistry I shared that banana bread is my favorite food. Yeah all we have done in chem is nothing, which I rather enjoy.

So now it’s the weekend. Friday night there was an outdoor dance party, which was sort of lame. Everyone was totally packed in the center of the dancing so there was no wiggle room. So then some people and I were freestyling out on the side. I pulled off a mean chicken wing. Just kidding I’m really bad at dancing but I pretended like I wasn’t.

I got bored of that dance after like an hour so I decided to go make friendship bracelets for prime time!!!!! I exchanged friendship bracelets with Amanda and now we’re friends for real. And one of my birdies from birdy and the perch, Sadie, is gonna make me a hemp bracelet I think? If anyone else wants a friendship bracelet from me, then too bad, because I am never wasting that much time of my life spent twisting little strings into a bigger string.

After being bored of that, I went to my room and macked on some Sun Chips, then people from the dance came back inside because the dance was over, and the afterparty commenced in my room! I’m sooooooooo glad I shipped my sub here, it’s so awesome. It’s seriously the only way I’ve gotten people to come and visit my room, since I blast it so loud. So me and AJ, a cool dude down the hall, compiled a short playlist while some people were gathered, and then there were maybe like eight people dancing in the room. It was pretty righteous. I learned how to do the “take a shower” and I’m still perfecting the jerk. College is a great tool for learning dance moves.

That was pretty much my night and past few days. Oh yeah and I played some Frisbee. Actually, today, I probably spent three to four hours playing Frisbee. I’m getting a mean forehand and slice toss. I’m not sure what a slice toss is, I made that term up, but it’s just this Frisbee throw that I got really good at today. Yay!

Okay it’s late so I’m gonna crash. Tomorrow is cliff diving with the swim team, Frisbee, and bingo, and probably a bunch of other awesome things going on. Kbye!

Boy to Man; School Starts.

Tuesday was pretty sweet, yeah. So after that pre-med meeting our dorm designed the most juicy and amazing choreographed dance performance to a music mix that has ever been seen by anyone, ever. The boiz of Jenkins West, which includes me, were put in charge of a segment from Taylor Swift’s “Love Story”. The show we put together in about three hours came together beautifully. At the start, everyone laid on the ground as a siren blared and a voice announced, “BJ men, report to the dance floor immediately.” Then, well, I would explain more, but I’ll just give you a link to watch it yourselves. The quality isn’t that good, but it can give you a better taste than if I were to explain it with mere words.

When we took our shirts off, along with maybe a few other elements we included into our performance, it was an immediate disqualification. This is good, because it treated us freshmen and brothers a lot. Once we had learned of our astoundingly incredible finish in the ranks, it was time for our last few hours together as frosh before we became brothers of Baldwin. We ran outside, me in my flip-flops since I had forgotten to borrow an RA’s stinky shoes, and ran around screaming our chants. Eventually, we found ourselves at a small outdoor stage area with a white brick wall backdrop.

One part of becoming a man involved going around to the back of the stage wall and climbing over, all of us at once. With a ten foot wall and around 50 men, it was no small task. On the first try we were a mere five seconds short of breaking the old record. On the second try, one guy simply could not make it up and ended up needing ice for his manly wounds. Finally, we broke the record by like 50 seconds. Pretty sweet.

After running around and yelling some more, we named like 20 guys. Then we ran to the library and screamed at the yelling wall some more, then we ran around and screamed some more. Then we ran to this field (screaming). At this field, the second part of becoming a man occurred. There was a tarp laid out on a hill, covered in chocolate pudding. I later learned that $120 was spent on that pudding alone. Everyone went down at least twice, getting covered in the chocolatey mess. The other thing was that it was like 40 degrees out and I was straight up freezing. But I had grown from a BJ Boy to a Baldwin Man. Our shout no longer incorporated the word BJ, but rather Baldwin.

After our fun, everyone sprinted half a mile back and headed straight for the showers. I was ahead of the pack and got to one right away, where I rinsed away the chocolatey mess. That night everyone hung out their shirts to dry so that we can proudly wear the brown-spattered garbs in all their glory.

It is now Wednesday. We had our first day of classes. By the beard of Zeus was I ever nervous. However, as the morning went on, I realized that all of my fear was in vain. Calc 2 is mostly everything I learned in AP Calc but just a little bit more. In chemistry, we took a placement test and I think I did really well despite not having chemistry for three years. And in bio, well, I took AP Bio last year so it shouldn’t be a problem. The only thing is that we actually had a summer reading assignment for the First Year Seminar class that I should get to work on. Kbye!

Camp Whitworth is Over Soon...

Okay so I became Wee Wee Man. I’m okay with the man part, but not so okay with the wee wee part. Whatever you think that means, you’re probably wrong. Shortly after assuming this worthy title, the BJ male crew huddled into a circle filled with our manly stench borne from running all over campus screaming our bloodcurdling warcries. We were then told that it was time for birdie and the perch.

No, it is not perch as in the fish, it is perch as in the strong, muscular thighs of the gentlemen (us) who would kneel down and serve as perching points for one or two of the lovely BJ women. Once again, we were teased by the RAs as we were forced to stare at the ground as the girls slowly walked circles around us. Then we finally turned around and met a few girls by staring deep within their eyes and gazing into their souls. However, the brothers felt that it was not quite right, and made us turn around again as the girls continued to loop around us. The same thing happened another time. So, on the third pairing, we finally were ready to transform our bodies into perches as our birdies (I had two) took rest on our bodies. As we continued to stare into their souls, we sang a tear-jerking ballad that would have immediately arrested the heart of Athena.  Then we shouted “LET’S GO STREAKING!!!” and ran away to eat dinner.

After dinner, which was a little BBQ thing with plates too small for my rumbling tummy, there was some volleyball and soccer action, along with one of the most incredible musical performances I have ever witnessed. One of our RA’s, Noah, gave us the gift of three of his own perfected masterpieces by layering with his pedals and making sweet love to his bass guitar. It was the most amazing thing my ears have experienced. It was as if my ear was a mouth eating sound waves of delicious food and candy and sparkling apple juice. Or putting on fresh silk boxers after shaving your legs and putting lotion on them, which I may or may not have done before. Anyways, it was cool.

After this and more chill time, the guys once again geared up in our stinky shirts (oh yeah, by the way, we aren’t allowed to take off our T-shirts until after traditiation, which ends Tuesday). We ran around for a bit then practiced our performance for the Yell-Off, which we had put hours into learning. Once we decided that it was good enough, we hustled over to the gym and did our performance along with all the other dorms’ guys and girls. The alumni watching plus the freshmen made for an extremely raucously loud atmosphere.

We were the third group up, the BJ Boys, and we did the school fight song, our mott-toe, our cre-toe, and a little thing we made up from the movie “300”, then we WENT STREAKING!!! Based on my spot in the lineup, I got to lead the pack out in my short shorts and got the brunt of all the whistles coming from the lovely Whitworth ladies. Also, at the end of the school fight song, I had the honor of doing a really awkward somersault and awkward run offstage, so that was probably what will win the “best dorm” competition for BJ.

The other groups were a mix of good and bad performances, with the BJ alumni being the loudest and most obnoxious all along. When all was said and done, I don’t think there was a winner announced, but I didn’t care because then it was time to woo the ladies.

This was another highlight of my time here so far, but pretty much every event has been a highlight. We ran from dorm to dorm to caress the lovely ladies of the campus with our voices and made them melt in the palms of our hands. Our song selection was Back to One, A Whole New World, I’ll Be, and, for the BJ ladies ONLY, BJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love Again. Although a few of the dorms sang back venomous words of rejection, I was later told that no man wooed better than the BJ men did that night, and that the RAs controlled the song selection and picked and chose which of the dorms would be rejected or accepted.

By the time we had wooed the hearts of nearly all of the ladies on the campus, I had perfected my method for use on my BJ woo-ee. The first song was simply for gazing upon the fair maiden and penetrating into her soul with our eyes. As we articulated the  second song it was time to feel the soft skin of her hand, and perhaps brush a stray hair from her gorgeous eyes. And by the third I was kneeling on the ground, pouring my entire essence into my song and finished with a small kiss on her precious hand as I gazed into her eyes. Then we started BJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love Again and everyone broke out into a dance party!

After a two-song dance party (the second was Tik-Tok), the RAs gave us the promise of a continued dance festival at the local Fred Meyer. For those of you who don’t know what Fred Meyer is, it’s because you’re not from the west coast (or other locations that have it, I guess), but apparently it’s a huge chain around here, basically like a Wal-Mart. Every week they have a night just for Whitworth students with heavily discounted prices and there was a dance on this one night. However, I just bought a ton of food and left because I didn’t want the womens flocking to my raucous dance moves. And props go to Rory for giving me and Korey a lift there and back.

So then we put our food away and basically went to bed I think. Some people were loud and obnoxious but I crashed by 2am, so it was a good night.

The next day, today, Tuesday, whatever, is more transitional into the whole school scene. There was a meeting with our advisors/First-Year Seminar teachers, where we talked about basic advisor type things. Then there was another outdoor lunch and in the HUB (Hixon Union Building, also where the caf is), there were a ton of tables for different clubs. I signed up for a prayer group thing, Young Life, Cancer Sucks (or something?), a Frisbee tournament this Saturday and Frisbee club, a service group, and ballroom dancing. I signed up for ballroom dancing because about 100 girls signed up and like 10 guys. I forgot if I mentioned this earlier, but there are about 500 girls and just under 200 guys in my class, so the odds are smiling with white, straight teeth and shiny lip-gloss lips at the guys. But anyways, I just signed up for e-mails to get information on the different things, it’s not like I’m going to participate all the time in all of those activities.

I just went to a pre-med meeting, where about 100 of us got scared about our stressful futures in and out of the schoolroom. And later I have more stuff that I will share with all of you later. Kbye!

The Next 24 hours-ish

Okay today (Sunday) was infinitely times more entertaining than the previous few days. Between traditiation, a mentalist, and meeting new people, the day was a blast.

First of all, I slept in til about 8 or 9 because I was so tired from the day yesterday. Then we grabbed breakfast, which was a nice delicious apple and yogurt and granola for me. A feast, I know. After that was some chill time and unpacking time. I figured that I couldn’t just keep pulling things out of my bags for the next nine months so it was time to really unpack my clothes and put them in their respective places.  After that, we headed to a lecture hall to hear a scary man talk about how hard school would be. And he also gave a shout out to the swimmers who need to be up at 5 and told everyone to respect our sleep so I liked him a little better after that.

Next up was another delicious lunch, and perhaps the last, since the parents left after that and the school no longer had the need to impress. Actually I hear the food is always pretty decent. I had met a BJ girl (once again, that’s Baldwin-Jenkins for those of you who forgot) and got to know her during the meeting and therefore I had gained a new friend! I’m such an amiable guy I guess aw shucks.

 After lunch there was more chill time to finish unpacking and bunk the beds. Now we have so much room for our old heirloom couch from the swim team called Garka’s couch, and a fridge and microwave. The only thing is that our room is just so boring! I don’t get how so many kids have awesome cozy rooms its like they spent months planning it out in advance. We just have a brown rug. But we might buy more to make it so it’s carpeted. Yeah that would be cool. Then we might get posters and other stuff. I’m also excited for my boxes to get here Wednesday so I have my subwoofer, shoes, sweatshirts, and other neat stuff like pens.

Following that chill/unpack session there was another brief meeting with all the freshmen in the auditorium where we got to hear a speech from the brand new President, Beck Taylor, who, in my opinion, looks and talks very much like Dr. Cox from Scrubs. Then the fun began.

The evening began with the “Species Supper” where we all obviously dressed up in our nicest formal wear. For me, this meant black dress pants, a white dress shirt, a belt, and flip-flops. After leaving the auditorium from Beck Taylor’s presentation everyone headed back to change, then the guys headed outside to wait for the girls while the girls waited inside for their cue. We stood outside in two lines, about 10 feet apart from each other, facing away from each other and towards either inside face of the U shape of the dorm. As I waited, staring at my naked toes, the girls silently lined up behind us and stood about two feet away. Upon command the girls moved closer and closer and were finally instructed to place their hand on their date’s shoulder.  Then we turned around after all the built up tension and suspense and finally met our pairs. Actually, some guys were paired with two gals but I settled with one.

As we escorted our dates to the species supper and got our pictures taken along the way, I made some conversation with Amanda and we were seated in a very nicely set table with some people from different dorms. Before the dinner we were told to ask our date two questions. The first was “do you crumple or fold?” and the second was “so what’s the deal with grape nuts?” To the second question, if our date answered “like, idk, they’re neither grapes nor nuts!?!?” then we would have the honor of bursting out of our chair and shouting, “BOOYAH, WE HAVE A WINNER!” Naturally, wanting a challenge, I effortlessly worked the crumple versus fold question into asking if her favorite dance style was crumple or folding, since she was a dancer. Of course, she had no clue what I meant. For the second question, I smoothly transitioned the conversation to breakfast foods and eventually popped the big question. She failed completely to have any knowledge of the cliché answer, though I did decide later to do the victorious shout anyways after a number of guys had already done it. I explained it fully first so nobody would freak out at me or reject me socially.

 After a lovely, quaint evening with my pinky out and my inquisitive chuckle well worn, the lady and I made our way to the magic show performed by Christopher Carter.  I realized that psychology degrees are useful for many things: being a shrink or teacher, or getting paid to mess with people’s heads. This guy was nuts though. He read cards that each member of the audience had filled out with his bare hands while having silver dollars and a blindfold heavily duck taped over his face. Apparently, you can learn to read people’s energies in some graduate schools. He also somehow got two girls who had spend 20 minutes checking out their brand new light bulbs to light them up using their minds. I could tell you more but you just wouldn’t believe me. Guess you had to be there!

I would have been content had the night ended there but it DIDN’T! After escorting Amanda back I changed into a white T, shorts, and borrowed someone’s shoes so I could run around. I bet that really grosses some people out but they were comfy shoes. So then all of us fresh men (space intended) met out in the back of the dorm for traditiation. There are many things I cannot share for the sake of the pact of the brotherhood of BJ but there are many things I also can share. All of us are known initially as “frosh (name)” and then go on to earn more suiting names based on certain characteristics we possess or events that happen to us. I don’t think I’m clumsy enough to gain a name ever, since 90% of the names have to do with people having yard sales all over or clotheslining over horizontal poles. Regardless, we will all have titles by the end of this Tuesday.

We ran, ran, ran through the night spreading our honor and glory to all of the campus with all of our chants. We learned the mott-toe and the cre-toe. (that’s phonetic by the way) We shouted at the shouting wall and echoed miles away. And we learned that BJ is simply the best; the greatest. BJ has the best men and the best women. For no woman treats you like a BJ woman and that fact treats us well. That sounded weird but that’s because none of you are part of the brotherhood and by that fact you should all be very jealous. We are the best men because not only are we incredibly sexy with our booming voices and incredible physique, we also have the voices of angels and hearts as golden and pure as puppies. Because of this, we have learned several songs with which we will woo the BJ women. For though they are the best, they are also very hard to impress. Therefore we will sing with all of our hearts and souls to win theirs. Tonight we will win them over and they will be our wives and be fruitful.

I hope that last paragraph didn’t change anyone’s opinion of me or freak anyone out, because, in all honesty, it should have. I’m just spitting back all that I learned during my night of brotherhood and glory.

Wow there is so much going on I feel bad making you all read all this except that I’m not really making you. I now have a name. It is Wee Wee Man. I cannot tell you why, because only BJ brothers and our wives on the night of our wedding can know the reason for our BJ nickname.

There’s more. But I’ll type it later. Kbye.

The Beginning Chunk

Hello audience. Since I’m in college I’ve decided it’s a very collegey/adult thing to do to start a blog. I’ve basically figured it out that a blog is like a public diary…or journal. Journals are manlier. So I’m just going to start by saying all the clichés commonly stated by first-time bloggers such as: I’m not sure what I’m doing, I’m not sure how much to write, I don’t think you’ll enjoy reading what I have to say… and I don’t think anyone’s even going to read any of this. Also, as time goes on I’m assuming that my posts will decrease in length from the size of a small novel down to about as many words as are on a Braille children’s story. Well, maybe I’ll keep it a bit longer than that.

My journey into the independent world began as soon as I split ways with the parentals at the security gate in the airport.  I immediately felt the mighty thrust into independence as I turned away from their loving, admiring eyes (yeah okay maybe they were really excited to see me gone) and faced the gate that led to all my hopes and dreams, also called B5. And since they might read this, I also miss them already L. And I suppose I’m not really that independent since I’m very financially dependent on them for the next eight-plus years. Oh well.

As I sit on the airplane and gaze out the window, the air is full of anticipation, excitement, nervousness, and somebody’s B.O. The first flight was short and the second one was longer. Since I’d been awake since 5am WI time and 3am WA time, I wanted to sleep on the second flight. After assuming several sleeping positions such as lolling my head to either side, resting my head on my hand supported by the armrest, snuggling with the gentleman next to me, resting on the tray in front of me, and resting on my backpack, I simply gave up after about an hour. What irked me the most was that while the tray position was the most comfortable, the woman in front of me, for whatever reason I cannot fathom, could not seem to get comfortable and was as shifty as a cat’s eyes! (I think I just made that saying up?) So then I played Pokémon until we landed.

Thinking back to what I said about the frequency of my posts, I’m pretty sure this first week is gonna be PACKED with activities so it only makes sense that I will have a lot to record in the  ol’ journal.

I arrived in Spokane a day before all the other freshmen arrived so that meant a couple of things. It meant I would spend the whole day with non-freshmen, which I was sort of scared of for a little while. But by the evening I had felt more settled in. Also, my roommate Korey and I are gonna get hooked up with some sweet freebies like a fridge and microwave and couch! And I can get my books from some of the swimmers too. Oh yeah and one girl said I can have her mattress pad. So kids: if you go to college, do a sport to get sweet hookups like Pedro does. (Napoleon Dynamite reference anyone?)

Move-in was easy, because all it initially required was bringing in my suitcases and setting them down. Also, since I got there early, I was able to get my ID card in no less than 5 minutes (which usually is a process that can take over an hour due to the line). When Korey got here we bought some stuff, including this totally awesome rug! It’s brown, and flat, and it was only $15! Or 16. Plus tax? Anyways, as soon as my boxes get here Wednesday I should be able to move in a little more legitimately. I can’t wait to blast my sub and make everyone angry.

After move-in our day was pretty scheduled; I met a lot of people, swimmers and non-athletes alike, including people from my dorm and some people I may not even see again (but probably will…it’s a small school). Our dorm room is in a prime location. Even though we’re in Baldwin-Jenkins (lovingly nicknamed BJ), which is known as the rowdy freshmen dorm, we’re in the corner, which allows for maximum quietness when it comes time to go to bed by 9 or 10 and wake up at 5 for practices.  One gentleman on our floor reminds me of a blonde version of Zach Galifianakis with his totally pro blonde beard and mannerisms.

This has been a brief overview of my past few days , it’s definitely impossible to give you every little detail, which could be more detail than all of you could even handle.  In the next few days we have some fun activities including traditiation (more on that later), which I’ll definitely keep everyone posted on. Kbye!