pinkeye, and more!

So this is what I get for vacation these days: a case of pinkeye, a teeth cleaning, a dermatologist's appointment (in which I have to somehow make sure that the dermatologist doesn't mention my tattoo to my mom), and a car search.

I went to LBJ High School yesterday to see everyone. By everyone, I mean the two teachers that are there that are actually interested in seeing me. My band director is the MAN, though, and he seems to have as much faith in me and pleasure in getting to talk with me as I do with him. They built a new theater in his honour (or, they built a new theater and named it after him. They're also going to be putting a gigantic portait of him in it), and he showed me around it and talked about how the band is going and whatnot. I really appreciate being remembered by one of my most influential teachers in high school, and especially as he (claims to) remembers me - as a strong leader in the band that had a big role in making us as sucessful as we were my senior year, when I was brass captain. I miss band, and I miss playing music, and I miss how much of a family everyone was with Mr. Haynes at the helm. He is a big black guy that likes to wear muscle shirts to show off his still impressive guns (he's in his fifties), but he has this incredibly sweet and fatherly disposition that goes along well with his big smile and slightly flamboyant habits. I thought he was gay until I found out he's married, and has 3 kids. Anyways, he deserves all of the recognition that he gets (which is a lot because he has been with the school for over 30 years and impacted a lot of other people in a similar way that he did me - probably a large part of why I am where I am today).

I am buying a Toyota Echo from a really sleazy dealer - some South American guy, I think, who doesn't know a lot of English and was selling this car out of an apartment parking lot - and I'm really excited about it. It gets something like 38 highway miles to the gallon, and over 30 in the city. It's basically the replacement for the Tercel, and the predecessor of the Yaris. One outstanding feature is the rediculous amount of headroom in the car. The roof is so high, apparently it's comfortable for 6'8" people. However, I think only small people are going to be able to sit in my back seat. It will be good to have something that I can drive around in Houston to get food, buy beer (when I'm 21 and supplying all of Long Hall, as well as Will Rice parties that I am coordinating), and in general be a senior in. It's a standard transmission car, and the only real technical upgrade from my Tercel that I used to have is that it has power steering (doesn't need it though, and I almost wish that it didn't). Also the interior is a lot nicer, and I'm assuming there is some better engine technology.

Can anyone tell that I'm bored? I'm going to go watch that Wilson brothers movie, I think.

PLAH (Peace Love and Happiness)

the small children of summer

summer begins, and I have gone to my first day of labwork. This is the first lab that I have worked in that has its own graduates students (previously I had to rent them hourly). They work more than 12 hours a day. Which is going to be pretty awkward when I work less than 10 hours a day. I cannot imagine spending my summer working 12 hours a day for 8-hour a day pay (there is some sort of legal maximum that I work).

Not to mention I didn't get paid for the 7.5 hours today.

DJed Tim's graduation party, which means DJ Humble is officially on the market as a hireable party DJ. It was pretty good, except for the part when Tim's brother almost killed Mark Hurley.

Off to recover from work.

spring bizzle

back from the fantastic NGA (no girls allowed) spring break 07 camping trip. Three worries over spring break, all associated with beer bike: 1) I would lose a lot of weight and thus be slower. 2) I would not be getting biking workouts, and thus be slower. 3) I would be slow.

So I got back from the trip on Wednesday night. Thursday I spent some time at the gym, and two of my three fears so far have been assauged. I have not lost a lot of strength in my legs because of spring break, and in fact I think that all the turbo-mountain-climbing with heavy packs on has made me stronger rather than weaker. We really booked it on this trip. Second, I weighed in at 161 lbs, which is heavier than I have been in a long time, which is really exciting because I have been losing any fat that I happened to have on my body so all the weight gain is in my muscles, specifically in my legs. Hooray! I am finally getting bigger.

However, I proceeded to be extremely sore after my stint in the gym and had to spend all of yesterday recovering my hamstrings from a workout that they apparently were not ready for. The quads are fine, and they are the muscle that really matters the most, but it was still pretty annoying being this sore. I'm going biking today, we'll see how it goes. There's not a lot of time until beer bike, and I have a lot of speed to gain if I'm going to be good enough.

I wait in eager anticipation to see if my summer is going to be simple or really complicated - I applied for three summer research positions, and I am really worried that I am not going to get any of them (they are really competitive, although my resume is extremely good) and as a result am going to be poor and without anything interesting to do in physics over the summer. I applied to places that have laser cooling, which I want to get good at. Hopefully, Washington State lets me in and I can make six grand, as well as live in a really cool city and save money for my trip to China after I graduate.

I'm worried.

Off to bike

i'm the milk guy

so the big conclusion to the archiarts costume that I put a total of 7-8 hours into was a really amazing costume (I had several people, including a lot of archis come up to me and tell me this) that said MILK on the front in big black letters. Everyone wanted a picture of me, and a surprising number of men wanted to dance with me... I guess being an inanimate object invites sexual dancing. Some guy tried to untie my shoes while I was dancing on a platform, too. Whatever.

I couldn't ride the shuttle to the party, so I had to ride the lightrail and walk some distance to get there. It was pretty tough, and I only was able to be at archiarts for about an hour and a half, but it was interesting too. People really respect you and stuff when you are wearing a giant (almost 6' tall) milk costume. We got pretty lucky finding it, though - and I owe Daniel a big one for going with me to the party on the lightrail instead of riding the shuttle, which I was a few inches short of fitting on.

All in all, an epic night. I think I made a lot of peoples' nights better, and even though I spent so much time on it and I had to leave it there because it wouldn't fit on the bus (lightrail doesn't run at 2) it was worth it. It's easy to dance when you're totally isolated from the rest of the world, becuase you don't have to worry about social awkwardness. However, it can be lonely too. Such is my life. At least I'm in a lot of pictures. Hopefully I can use my newly-won fame to make our parties next year more sucessful when I am socials coordinator.

Off to bed.

If anyone actually reads this and is disgusted by my diction and syntax, remember that I am exhausted and sober-after-drunk, which isn't great for either diction or syntax.

Peace

potpourri

in the middle of a math test/Chinese quiz binge, trying to regain some of my sanity. I have to make a costume for archiarts at some point between now and tomorrow - I think it's going to happen tomorrow. The worrying thing is that all of the wood isn't even cut, let alone is the frame built. I might just go as a white milk carton with nothing on it.

So sick of this math test. If I turn it in with only two of the three problems done, will I get a poor grade?

still buzzed over how cool the party was two weeks ago...

so many people know me now because they went to my party. It's so much easier to meet people now. Dj Humble represent.

Only 9 weeks until beer bike. I have been running stairs pretty much exclusively, because I can't really run distances and it's way too cold and wet to bike. I think I'm getting a whole lot out of it, though, because I started out running the stairs once, then I went to doing it twice but it took me about 30 minutes to recover after, now it takes me about 10 minutes. Now I need to work on doing it faster and faster, and all of that muscle and stamina should translate to biking (I hope). This year should or could be our golden year, so hopefully I can start strong and keep going strong all year. First time trial Thursday, I'm shooting for 2:25.

The semester is incredibly hard. I work every night on one of my three math classes or my physics class, or I catch up on Chinese that I've forgotten to do because I was doing math. I am already substantially better at thinking about math, though. I have a really adaptive mind, in that I am good at adjusting my thinking style to whatever suits the subject I am studing. So taking more math than I have ever before (by far) and doing a lot of proof-based and abstract stuff has really developed parts of my intellect that weren't being used for physics, and as a result I am a little better at everything. I love learning. On the other hand, I am swamped and I hate that. Also I am doing nothing but math and physics now, so I am really losing a little bit of my touch on reality. I have to make up for it by having a badass tattoo and drinking more than any of the other physics majors. HA.

Off to do some Chinese.

holla at a playa

I don't know who actually reads this, but if you go to Rice and you weren't at my party last night then you missed out on some hardcore shit. I think it was some sort of record for attendance at a private party - when the fire alarm went off, I was almost sure that there were 300 people standing in the little forest between Will Rice and Hanszen. At least, Officer Anderson said that he thought there were at least 300 people there, and I trust his opinion. We went through three kegs and 15 gallons of punch in about two and a half to three hours. Wow.

Dancing all night was a success, too. I DJed for at least 2 hours (with breaks) and people really enjoyed what I was doing. It's almost impossible to chop and screw live and work it into a mix because you need two tables to do it, but I did it a couple of times (seamlessley enought that most people didnt notice). There was certainly a lot of partying going on in that room. And the biggest surprise was that the other common room, with the TV and surround sound hooked up to someone's iPod, was bumping as well. Even after the fire alarm and after we floated. Both rooms were completely full, as well as the balcony and there were at least 100 people outside in the forest at any given time. What an amazing scene. Everyone had a great time.

Parties are a strange creature. When it was getting started, the only people there were 90s kids (and friends), and we were all out on the balcony and in the girls' rooms upstairs getting ready. So at 10:30 when the first group of Wiess freshmen came by, they thought it was going to be a bust and took off after consuming some of our famous lemonade punch. Then Montoya, Diana, and Caroline came in and were the only people not from our immediate group in the room, but they were dedicated to actually staying in the party room, and after that I started DJing as no one actually left after that. The next time I took a look outside, it was people literally as far as I could see. All of Rice made a mass exodus from the rest of campus and congregated on our room. So it was this lull before the storm, when we thought we would have a hard time getting it started, and then there was the seed group that caused people not to leave, and then the floodgates opened. What an intense night. None of us even got really drunk, because we were all dealing with different stuff (I DJed, some people were outside making sure there were no cups outside, once the fire alarm went off we all helped deal with it and made sure no one bothered Officer Anderson). I think we really dodged the bullet with the cops, actually, because we got the coolest cop EVER and he didn't mind that there was a lot of noise/people outside even though that qualifies us as a public party and they can come in. He just said keep the drinks inside. I guess he figured out that it would have been impossible for him to tell us to all go inside because of the massive number of people there.

If you're ever in the 713, holla at a playa, holla at a playa, holla at a playa. What a great time.