This is what happens when the monkeys in my head get tired of sitting at their typewriters, and start throwing poop at each other instead.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
[Expletive deleted]
As if this season could get any more ridiculous, it seems as if we'll be without Jack for Regionals. He got back from the doctor's this afternoon and has a "severely sprained ankle with possible ligament damage." How? Getting out of bed. What kind of bullshit is that? Who fucking hurts themselves getting out of bed?? Shuffles said that it was the freakiest thing he ever saw, just one step and bam! on the ground. I saw him on the way to his Italian class today and he was on crutches. Wow. But you know, I still have confidence in this team. We've still got a lot of height, and it just means that everyone, young and not so young, is going to have to pick it up. Damn though. What an end to the season for our only senior... I can't imagine being him and watching from the sideline as we finish out the season...
I'll probably have a little stream of consciousness going here, but whatever. Stream of consciousness reminds me of my junior year of high school, in English class, because we were assigned some paper where we had to write in stream of consciousness. But that reminds me how we had "Chautauquas" which had a Native American name for some hippy reason I'm sure. Basically it was a Socratic discussion, driven by us students. And finally, that reminds me of the joke my friends and I had about doing a "Chautauqua dance" every time our teacher mentioned it, because the whole concept of calling it a Chautauqua was ridiculous and humorous. Hi-yuh-uy-yuh, hi-yuh-uy-yuh... Those were the good days with Marc, Lokys, Eric, Ben, Kyle, Jeff and I causing general mayhem and defying all the stupid cliques in our high school (which incidentally was only 550 students).
Anyways, the time has come to start considering songs for the 2006 ultimate video. This is very arduous as my music tastes are very limited. Especially in the genres that everyone else likes. Granted, I have everything on my computer from Pantera to Beethoven's symphonies, to a capella music, but I just don't explore music as much as other people. Especially not via iPods, which will destroy civilization as we know it, rest assured. Just part of the anti-social revolution, of course. I have, however, taken a liking to the New Pornographers, one of the bands that Linc likes. I can't decide how to deal with that. I make fun of him for being "emo" all the time, but apparently these guys aren't really emo, they're more "indie." Whatever the fuck that means, I dunno, I just like a bunch of their songs, especially "Use It." I think it's an awesome song. Not that I would use it for the video... that would just invite cinematographic rebellion. I have also taken a liking to Blackalicious. He is quite clever.
Alas, Regionals! We got a three-seed, which is a gift from on high. We'd better use it. I'm excited to play, certainly, but when you are Slavic you tend to be pessimistic and worry too much. Given this, I can certainly feel the Polak-, Lithuanian-, and Russian-ness coursing through my veins. I am nervous enough to compare to my track days before big races. There's a lot of redemption to be had, especially against Delaware. Man... looking back, that game was a train wreck. I cannot believe how badly I played. Not only that but one of our studs had the worst game of his career (self-admitted). I need to calm down... or maybe instead drive myself crazy like I used to do before track meets. Hey, it got me an All-State title...
It will also be awkward to be around Pitt. For those of you who are abroad or live in a hole or whatever, I now have a Facebook group dedicated to me, thanks to Pitt Ultimate and a bizarre series of events leading to the discovery of my blog by... well... their entire team I guess. Check it out: http://gwu.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2200884785 . A wonderful display of internetting, indeed. Since the picture of me with the sword ended up there (somehow), I will briefly describe the story behind it. That sword is a family heirloom because one of my crazyass Polak-American relatives was fighting in the Pacific and took it off the battlefield. Or so the family story goes. It is safely in my basement at home, I will not be busting it out and goring anyone with it (I checked and GW has a strict anti-sword rule for the dorms...).
Anyways... Regionals... next big thing in my life. I've been eating well all week, after the chocolate- and donut-fueled nutritional debacle that was last weekend. Also, I've been working especially hard in swimming class (yes, I just learned how to swim this semester... don't even start...) and getting in some good workouts. I think I may even go to the pool of my own volition this Friday before we leave, to get in a loosening-up workout. Hopefully I won't swallow too much pool water and get sick again.
To boldly go where everyone except me has gone before
Some of you out there may not know that I don't drink. At all.. none of this pussy-pansy bullshit of "I taste," or "I don't get drunk." I flat out do not drink at all (with the exception of New Year's Eve when I was in Lithuania and it was legal). And even then I was most definitely not altered at all.
This was a decision that I made when I first came to college, being that at the time I was dead-set on a career in the intelligence community, where they take any substance-related arrests very, very seriously. For the most part, that reason has fallen significantly in importance. I'm not sure I want to do intelligence anymore. I've entertained possibilities of teaching English in Russia, or going into the US Navy's Officer Candidate School. I've even thought about doing what one of my history professors does, and unpack all the old Soviet archives looking for new perspectives on the Cold War. Career plans aside, the point is that my refusal to imbibe in alcohol originated out of a fear of getting some sort of underage drinking arrest on my record.
But that's not why it continued. Later on, my aversion to booze developed out of a healthy disdain for drunk people. Often, I was told to look after drunk people at parties, which I did not much appreciate. Besides that, even, I saw the changes in my friends' personalities as they got wasted and it disgusted me. I didn't ever want to be the people my friends became when they were shit-housed. To an extent, this is still part of why I don't drink, albeit a minor part.
So there are two reasons that came and went: fear of arrest, and dislike of drunk people. What does that leave? Spite.
I'll put this in bold. The only reason I didn't drink through sophomore or junior year is because everyone wanted me to. When I said "The more you make these not-drinking jokes and offering me beers, the longer it will be until I do drink," I meant it. The fact that I don't drink is a minute and unimportant part of my personality. It's irritating having jokes about my sobriety as the one constant in my party experiences. It's irritating having a normal conversation and people going off on tangents about "So... when are you going to drink?" Of all the things you could possibly bring up, you think that that's the most important thing to ask about? For all these reasons and more, I will not be drinking until I am 21. Arbitrary? Maybe.
Now that I have decided to take my first adventures into the world of what one roommate described once as "fantabulous drunkitude," I already have people telling me "I'm going to get you so shit faced [blah-blah-blah]," etc., etc. Again, this is precisely the reason why I am NOT going to go overboard. Why is this so important to other people? I simply don't understand and it bothers me that something so trivial and pointless envelopes people so passionately as to get excited about getting me drunk. If I ever do end up booting as a result of an accidentally excessive intake of alcohol, I'll make sure it's right in the lap of one of you fuckers who made it your life's business to see the day that I drank alcohol.
All of that said, it's 80 days until the first time I take to the streets and go boldly where everyone except me has gone before. The only reason I'm even bothering is because if I ever go to Russia (which seems inevitable at this point) I don't want to die as a result of drinking with Russians. So for this first ever foray, what sort of festivities will there be? I don't know. I'm not really anticipating anything too special. But I will say this. Dave Stira does not drink beer. I have tasted beer three times in my life:
1) When my dad was drinking a beer and I wanted a taste of it ("Knock yourself out, but you're not going to like it...") 2) When more than a dozen of us bit LHers, in retaliation for all the times she'd bitten us at parties, and she spilled her beer all over my face and partially in my mouth. 3) When I was in Lithuania, at a nightclub, and my friend bought me what was supposedly a "good Lithuanian beer, much better than American."
Lo and behold, each time, I came away with the same impression: beer tastes like fermented Metamucil. I fucking hate beer, it is gross and does not deserve its status as a beverage. Rest assured, that if I roll up to a party next year with the intention of knocking back a few, it will be hard liquor. There is no way I am suffering through drinking that shit. I'll get myself some good Russian vodka and I'll be on my way (probably carrying out with me accoutrements from the host's venue -- be forewarned). And for the record, if it ain't Slavic, it ain't vodka. You can talk about your Grey Goose or Vox or whatever, but unless it comes from a country that was plastered with red stars 20 years ago, keep it the fuck away from me.
July 12th is my birthday. I have stated that I want to go to the Russia House, but I would understand if people didn't want to go with me. It is run by the Russian Mob, and it is a formal and expensive place, but I have the benefit of never having spent a dime for beer money so far...
For those of you out there who read my blog from the fine (?) city of Pittsburgh, I am not going through a play-by-play or any sort of analysis of our loss at Sectionals to Delaware. Sorry, but I'm just not that stupid... despite having missed my induction into the National Slavic Honor Society this week because I thought it began an hour later than it in fact did.
Sectionals was a bit depressing, but I will admit that I personally had a lot of hubris going into the finals against Delaware. I thought hey, we beat these guys with 10 guys at Salisbury -- there really isn't going to be any contest. We played poorly. I played poorly. I got run over by their handlers, and let off more breaks in one game than I probably did in the previous day and previous tournament combined. Even that wasn't the worst part. I felt like everything I did was ineffective - really it was a feeling of startling impotence. Well, live and learn. I'm not going into Regionals with any presuppositions. I have seen what hubris can do this past weekend, and I don't really like it. Even though I've been thinking about that loss for nearly every waking moment since Sunday, our team will be ready to take care of business knowing that we have something to prove after losing to a bunch of hooligans like Delaware.
All the shock from losing that game evaporated in the Maryland game. We came out firing and I got a point block on the first throw of the first point. I don't want to sound arrogant or anything, but I felt like getting that turn so close to the endzone and scoring right off the bat pushed all the anger out of my mind, and out of the minds of my teammates, and let us focus on going up 8-3 or something at half. We were a completely different team for that game, and secured the #2 spot in the section. Also, some of my teammates foolishly tried to tell me that a kid on Maryland had bigger calves than I do. Yeah right. I challenge anyone in the Metro East to a calf-off.
The next day brought some sports-related success with our intramural volleyball team. I am totally the worst guy on the team, but the team consists of just random people that I know. Ethan, one of my teammates on the ultimate team, and I founded the team our freshman year and recruited several other ultimate guys on the team, also. Not only that but I recruited a guy from my floor who had played for a really, really good team in PA in high school. Then we picked up the roommate of one of my other teammates, who is a volleyball crushing monster. This year we became more diverse with the addition of a female friend of Josh's (Josh being another teammate from the ultimate team who plays with us). Yeah, we have a chick even though we're in the men's league. What?
Anyhow, we're a dynasty - we've got two sets of t-shirts to prove it and a whole lot of pwn3d frat teams that will attest to our dominance. So much for cutting down on hubris. Eh, whatever, it's intramural volleyball. There is this law school team that plays against us, they're pretty good, unlike every other team that has been in any intramural league up until this year. They're so serious about it - they are the antithesis of our team.
Incidentally, our team name is "The Electric Mayhem," which is actually a reference to the band on the Muppets. We are the most random assortment of people (3 ultimate people, 2 friends of ultimate people, 1 roommate of an ultimate person, and one guy I met freshman year and never really hang out with other than playing volleyball). The law school team talks strategy and takes themselves all seriously and shit - we just fuck around and end up pwning chumps all the live long day. It was great - their big dude, the guy after whom the team is named actually, absolutely stuffed Sarah, our token, but awesome, female, in the first match. Come the third match, she goes up against him again (guy - 6'5", Sarah, 5'10"ish) spikes it off his hands and out of bounds at a critical point in the tiebreaker game. Anyhow, that should definitely get us a side of the bracket to ourselves when we go into the finals and start playing frat teams, with all their groupies and idiot pledge classes cheering them on. Last year we beat Pi Kappa Alpha in straight sets for the intramural championship... with five players (it's a six-on-six league).
We used to get mad crew from the ultimate team, but now games are during 24 and everyone refuses to come out and support Josh, Ethan, and I. Our spectator count is at two now (of course they were appreciated), but which is pretty sad really considering the publicity we got in years past. I'll let everyone know when the finals are, and I will continue offering to Tivo 24 so that people can still watch that mindless buffoonery once our games are over.
For those of you who don't know, GW is one of the most expensive schools in the country to attend. Odd how this is true and yet we are not a top-50 university, but the point remains. Depending on when you entered the university, your tuition + room and board can come out to anywhere between 40 and 50 thousand dollars. I am on academic scholarship, and maintain that if I ever lost that scholarship, I would be out of here in a second because I just can't afford it. Anyhow, GW has used the money that I do pay for some things that absolutely defy the imagination in their pointlessness. My purpose is to elucidate for you the ridiculousness with which GW spends our tuition dollars.
1) Gold column
Not a set of gold columns, one. What is its purpose? IT'S NOT EVEN ATTACHED TO ANYTHING. Some have said it's a Masonic symbol, others say phallic. The point is, somewhere along the line, someone thought that the Marvin Center (our lousy excuse for a student union) simply would not be complete without a free-standing gold-painted column.
2) Campaigning limit tape
Our student elections are the most ridiculously hilarious time of the year. Our school as a whole has a big problem with taking ourselves too seriously, but when Student Association elections roll around, all the poli-sci buttholes come out in force to play out the fantasies they have while boxing the clown to West Wing. And of course, the Student Association Elections Committee provides accoutrements like this campaign tape to make the fantasy complete -- at the rest of the students' collective expense. Then they go along and argue about $1 increases to the Student Association fee built into the tuition as if it were the Crime of '73. On a side note, congratulations to Josh for winning the EVP seat. I voted for you out of nepotism, but I also believe in your abilities.
3) USELESS FLATSCREEN TV'S
Regrettably, this is only one example of the ridiculous ubiquitousness of flat-screen TVs on the GW campus. This one is on the second floor of the Academic Center, home to the language laboratories and many classrooms (you can see these in the picture). Aside from that, there really is no reason to be on the second floor. Yet GW thinks that somehow, they are enhancing my student experience by mounting a huge flat-screen TV in a fucking hallway. I have class on this floor at least once a day, twice on Tuesdays and Thursdays (Russian and Russian Lit). I have never seen anything of consequence on this screen. Things that I've seen include: the Windows screensaver, screenshots of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences website, GW-themed screensavers, the news section of the Anthropology department's website, and several times... nothing. Not only that, but the TV has a nice set of speakers installed, too -- for all those times they want to play audio in a hallway full of classrooms.
4) Obelisk!
I'm not kidding; here we have another GW expenditure on a phallic symbol. This atrocity stands in J-Street, the part of the Marvin Center with dining venues and a large seating area. This monument to reckless spending changes colors, and has four... guess what... flat screen TV's affixed to the top of it. It is two stories tall, as it extends all the way from the ground floor up to the seating area. Perhaps this is not a monument to reckless spending as I previously stated. On closer inspection, it seems to perhaps be a monument to television, specifically, to CNN, to which the TVs are perpetually tuned. With perpetual CNN being taken into consideration, it seems reasonable to assume that this is, in fact, a monument to the politically masturbatory nature of GW's student body.
5) The Ivory Tower Dining Hall sign
Yes, we have a dorm that is named Ivory Tower. It's a zing at the D.C. zoning board, who didn't want us to build that dorm. Anyhow, there's a dining hall in the basement. I was one of the first-ever residents of this building last year, and this year they made it better by adding this monstrosity. Now every time students descend the stairs, they are reminded that their dining experience will be a) fresh (symbolised by the fresh fruit the people on the sign strangely aren't looking at) b) sociable (symbolised by the people in the background) and c) multi-racial (Diversity: an essential part of a complete breakfast). I have nothing against the dining venues, I eat here quite often. I just don't feel the need to be reminded where I am and why I am there... when I am already there. There is absolutely no advertising value to this either - no one is entering the building thinking it is anything but a dorm/dining hall, and you definitely can't see it from the outside.
...and you know, while we're at it...
6) J Street
J Street used to be cool. There were unlimited fountain drinks, different sections with their own distinct unofficial flavors (J Street South, the Ghetto, the Barrio), and most importantly, Chick-fil-a (where you could get indestructible cups to ensure yourself an endless supply of fountain drinks while only buying a drink once every couple of weeks). Then they renovated it after my freshman year. They spent millions of dollars renovating it for no good reason. Not only that, but after the renovations, the only things we had to show for it were a dysfunctional excuse for a Wendy's and a fucking obelisk.
Now, the various inadequacies of J Street led myself and another to start an official J-Street boycott. They have a Subway there that frequently runs out of things. Not just things, but essential things, like BREAD. They have Wendy's where they can't even stack the goddamn meat patties on top of one another. This particular failing, over time, drove me to boycott the entire establishment. Not only are the employees often rude and inefficient, but they can't take three seconds to make sure everything is on the frigging bun and not spilling out like back fat over ill-fitting pants. The burritos at the burrito place cost $7 and have been described as tasting like a "a rotten vagina cookie." Their motto is "See. Be seen. Leave full and happy." Yeah. The only thing I will see is horrendous ineptitude, shitty food, high prices, and freshmen who have enough debit dollars to blow it all on getting fatter. I don't even know what they mean by "be seen," so I don't have anything witty for that. Leave full and happy. Yeah, you'll leave full... so full you'll be crapping like a woodchipper for the rest of the day. The moral of the story is you'll see things and leave full, but you will most definitely not be happy.
We were trying to huck over the reflecting pool today, just for shits because basically no one showed up for coed. Some freshmen thought they could huck across it, but the disc ended up in the water. Now, you may remember this particular pathogen stew from Forrest Gump, when his fucked-up girlfriend goes wading out into it. The sanitary conditions are much the same then as they are now, except instead of hippy excrement, it's bird flu... and some homeless people probably crapped in it as well. I am convinced that if anyone in this country is to get bird flu, it's me. My summer league team in Indiana was called Bird Flu. Also, I went wading through it with two open cuts on my knees. And thirdly, every bird in Foggy Bottom has probably shat in that pool because when the water gets old, it is literally opaque and quite chartreuse. Needless to say, if I don't get sick from this at all, I say bring on the bird flu.
101 page loads in the last 24 hour period. I can't help but think my 15 minutes of fame are fast drawing to a close. Maybe I should write about Pitt more often.
I don't know what the fuck is going on, but there are an awful lot of hits from Pittsburgh... specifically the University thereof. Now, I'm a simple man, with a simple love of complaining. I'd like to think "I'm just that funny," but alas, I doubt it. What's the deal? I don't trash-talk on my blog, or at all really. Why are you guys so interested in me? I mean, I'm flattered, I really am... but I'm really pretty miffed by how I could get 80 fucking hits in 12 hours! I think this has something to do with you, William "Wes" Shonk...
Now I'm not coming down on anyone, in fact, it's a real honor to have so many hits, so thank you to whomever promulgated my assortment of curmudgeonry (yes, it's a word, look it up bitches!). But could I just get clued in on how I apparently became so widely read at Pitt... literally overnight?? With all sincerity... I would really appreciate it! I think this all started on Facebook, so if you want to message me there, go ahead. Also, my email address is not that hard to figure out.
FURTHERMORE. Somehow, some of the hits are coming from the Pittsburgh Ultimate website. I don't know where my address is on there, and goddamn I looked for it, but how the hell did it get there??
The title is a quote from Ethan, who brought along a bag of Cadbury eggs to our tournament this past weekend in Wilmington, NC. I finally got a chance to quench my lust for playing Pittsburgh, our main regional rival, but my desires for victory went unfulfilled. I got kneed in the head, that was pretty sweet. It was okay though cause the guy who did it is one of the nicest guys on Pitt, and I was playing pretty rough defense, so meh, whatever (getting pegged in the same spot during intramural volleyball was less than sweet, though).
The main stories of the weekend were off the field though. We stayed at a hotel that had some sort of major plumbing problem just prior to our arrival, so the understaffed front desk had a really long line because the inept employees also had to deal with the plumbing stuff. There were at least three Marines on leave ahead of me, all of whom were definitely getting ass. Case in point, when asked how many nights one girl tittered and said "Oh, the whole night? We're only going to need two hours." This should have set off alarms in my head, but I was too damn tired and frustrated to care. Needless to say, Saturday night I was lulled to sleep by the sound of fucking in the next room over (no one from the team obviously), and, oh yeah, and she was a moaner... I actually woke up the next morning to... more fucking! Anyhow, before I get ahead of myself, we'll start from the beginning.
On the ride down, two of our freshmen were wasted in the back seat (they had been drinking since one o' clock). Unfortunately, we got stuck in traffic even after Dan Sigal crossed a construction-area median, bottoming out to get into the HOV lane. Thus, since the mewkies had to pee, and we were stopped with no exit in sight, the logical choice was to have them pee on the median. This course of action was met with cheers of encouragement from an enthusiastic Mexican man in another car stuck in the same traffic. Oddly enough, Lyle simply could not drain the monster in front of dozens of commuters.
Once down in Carolina, we stopped at Bojangles. Let me say right here and now that Bojangles is a horrendous excuse for a restaurant, and I spent the worst $4.80 of my life there. Worse than frigging Cici's a.k.a. gastrointestinal carpet bombery, and that's saying something. Upon entering, I audibly wondered if the prom had gotten out or something, because all kinds of high school students were hanging out there. Lyle got the cutie eye from one girl who was sitting with her boyfriend, and was subsequently glared at throughout the meal by the boyfriend. We also saw a Cheerwine vending machine, which was amazing. I have a picture of myself next to it, but I have to find somewhere to upload it to.
Day one went by without too many hitches, including a revenge win over Duke. In the after-action stretching circle, we were all informed what "space docking" is, thank you Ethan... Later on, Tufsky hatched a masterful April Fool's joke on Linc. He purchased a fish tank, shattered it, moved Linc's rental car to the opposite side of the hotel, and scattered the glass where the front window would have been. The prank was successful, in that Linc totally thought his car was stolen. That conclusion may have made sense, given that the police were present both nights, once with K-9 units, responding to other calls at the Best Value Inn.
That night, a bunch of guys found some girls who were going through Orientation at UNCW, and so Linc, Fearless, and Lyle were all over them. Rob destroyed some things, as did Lyle, and Ethan went on a walkabout - each of which is nothing more than commonplace.
The ride back wasn't very interesting, but it was a good weekend nonetheless. We beat the teams we should have beaten, but the Pitt game really was frustrating. I really wanted to guard one of their two best handlers, but even though that's all I do, I'm apparently not good enough to even try. We can beat them. We were missing two of our veterans, and Tufsky broke himself again, so once Regionals rolls around, I think they'll see a dramatically different team than the one they saw self-destruct in the final points of the game. If nothing else, it gives us some motivation.
