The Klan Rally

So yea, I'll be going back to my first Vestavian football game even though I live the same distance as I did before from it. Mainly because it's our big rival team,Hoover(formerly #2 prep-football team in the NATION by USA Today), and many graduate friends from last year will be there. Hoover is soo big that MTV is following them to do some kind of True Life deal with em, NO JOKE. But there's been quite the backlash from my work at Vestavia. I hear there are more flags than ever. But anyways to make this short I will take many a pictures and post them to show u guys what has and has not changed. So glad I'm through with that bullshite. Too bad the sis is not. GO REBELS

ruddigore

I have been cast in the Harvard Gilbert and Sullivan Players' fall production of Ruddigore. I am playing Robin (obviously the coolest part with a name like that), so on December 1, I shall lose my acting virginity with a bang. You better all be there.

I know Olga has also been cast in something, so yeah. No excuses for not visiting.

Marsalis in Concert

Legend has it that Wynton Marsalis played a concert in Binghampton last year. This, according to a middle-schooler sitting two seats away from me tonight who was also at that alleged concert. Tonight, Wynton's younger, saxaphone-toting brother wowed a crowd of about 1100 at the State Theater, right next to the commons. I've seen some pretty good jazz combos (the Kenny Warner Trio comes to mind), but this quartet just took the cake. They were just technically, creatively, and artistically better than any live performance I can remember ever seeing. This may well have been more moving than the Minnesota Opera's Madame Butterfly, or even A Handmaiden's Tale--two productions that had been my gold standard up to this point, along with Warner's concert at UW Lacrosse three years ago. I sat with mouth agape for whatever parts of the performance weren't consumed by enthusiastic applause. Now I'm afraid to go to a Wynton concert for fear of death by musical ecstasy.
-Michael

A big heart or an utter dumbass(I'm thinking the latter)

There are a few of you who are used to city life and all the baggage that comes with it, no parking, big buildings, lots o traffic and most importantly ..... people constantly begging you for MONEY. So here are some stories of my interactions with the "homeless" .......(I put quotations b/c I really know nothing of the common beggar on the side of the street i assume he's homeless or maybe he's hooked on drugs or maybe he's a billionare who just thought it'd be cool to get free money)

So me and 2 friends from highschool are eating at Quiznos and this guy walks in and says hi and puts his hand out so of course being the dumbass that I am I shake his hand. His hand was very sweaty and there was no firm handshake(guys, you know what i'm talkin about). So I proceeded to eat with my left hand while this guy blabbed. He told us that he just got out of the Cooper Green Hospital Psyche Ward(B'ham and UAB is well known for their medical program and we have like 8 or 9 different hospitals all linked together downtown and cooper green is of the shittiest and ppl with little to no income go there). He asked us several times if we could help him out. Then he asked for money and I was like I just have plastic(in my mind I was like yes, now he'll leave). Then he was like could u get me a taxi? And B'ham is no New York, more like Ithaca where you have to call a taxi, so i was like no sorry. (To be stereotypical) He said,"C'mon nah help a brotha out". I was just like sorry and he stormed out. What would YOU DO?

Here's the biggy. I'm low on gas and stop at this BP station right outside of downtown. I'm pumping and this one guy(black no doubt) is on a cell phone and calls to me while i'm pumping and I, of course, ignore him and act like a didn't here him. Once again I get the handshake which obviously is a symbol for I want some money bitches. He asked me for my name and being the dope that I am I say,"Teddy". He 1st asks for some money for gas cuz his car broke down, down the road. Once again, all I have is plastic(chu ching), but no. Well could ya take up to tha bank? I was already running late for this thing for Marching Band. After I sigh and start shaking my head he pleads with me and says,"I work for Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, i'm a janitor plz oh plz." Then I said yea. I like threw my ipod(350) and my cell phone(200) in the back and new nothing of this guy or his true motives. So I drove him up to a bank about 5 min away and then he asked if I could drive him back, I said no thank god I finally grew some. Did he go into the bank? NO he stood outside and talked to one of his friends and told me that i left my gas cap off, did he close it? no just told me.

What do you guys do, David, Robin, Minyang and other city-dwellers. From now on I'm just gonna say a stern NO. Would you guys give a random person u've never met a ride to the "bank"?

...

So what has college been like for Hannah so far?

Well, for one thing, my habit of running full speed into people in an attempt to knock them over has finally paid off: I’ve joined the Women’s Rugby Team. Yeah, that’s right. Three times a week, I go to practice and get the shit beat out of me. And I LOVE it.

I’ve made lots of new friends for one reason, really. I have a very amazing purple satin comforter that people cannot resist. Once they sit, they simply can’t get back up. Kind of like fly paper. Only less fatal.

Come sit on my bed.

Shopping for courses has been stressful but helpful. The autobiography seminar that I really wanted to take was cancelled last minute because the professor is in ill health. Which is absurdly devastating. I really wanted to take it, and I feel terrible for the professor, who I liked a lot. But I’m making due with a theoretical physics core about Time and an amazing course on the Cuban Revolution. Plus, I’m learning Portuguese. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to communicate with the great aunts at Thanksgiving dinner. (Que bom!)

I love Cambrigde, I love Boston, I love how being an art connoisseur is the same a being a pedestrian here.

I love being a pedestrian here.

Anyhow, practice is at four-thirty, I have to go buy a mouth guard. Catch you later…

Come sit on my bed.

free sweats

I passed my swim test today, so I don't have to take the class. It was rough, though. I was working really hard on my fourth and final lap and the lifeguard started staring at me, so I decided I had to keep going just to keep from having to be rescued in seven and a half feet of water. Afterwards, though, I found the athletic department selling all the old workout clothes to benefit Hurricaine Katrina victims. I got windbreakers and shorts for a dollar each, so I am comforted. We'll see about the rest of my fitness test tomorrow...

Larry

As I type this, Larry Summers is standing next to the barbequed chicken under a tent in Sever Quad shaking hands with freshmen. You go down the line: hamburger bun, patty, corn on the cob, condiments, Larry. I just got my handshake. He's being treated like a piece of meat, which is particularly appropriate for this kind of "President's Barbeque" setting. You eat the meat, then you meet Larry.

Some people are getting their Larry Summers dollar bills augmented with an autograph from the man himself. I didn't have any of those bills, so I missed my chance - but then again, is the autograph really worth a dollar?

And by the way, the chicken was awful.

finally here

I moved into my dorm today. I have a single room - who could compare with Olga? - but my neighbors all seem nice; I can see myself being good friends with at least a couple of them. After all the running around and listening to opening convocation speeches and trying to be friendlybutnotoverbearing, I'm quite tired right now, in a good way.

Not much interesting to comment on yet, but I'll definetly keep up with you all. Actually, I'm fallings asleep as i write and can't function, oh well. Hope everyone's doing well in their various instutions.

memories...

Right now it is two thirty in the morning, and two women, one of whom I have not yet met, are asleep in my bed. I have no idea what is happening.

Harvard cops rock

If this first week of college is any indicator, then I am going to die before Thanksgiving. Today I skipped two meals to finish two seminar applications which I have known about for probably a month and which were only 750 words combined. Last night, instead of writing them, Hannah dressed up my room mate (Roy Kimmey: a picture should be up for his facebook soon) until four in the morning for which I got to be a spectator as her room mate pried me with questions about my sexuality and whether I was Roy's fuck buddy. I have also been late to just about every meeting scheduled by our proctor, who also had to violently shush me at "Sex Signals" today (although, Harvard students analyzing sex WAS funny and well deserved the comments I made). At least if I die, I will do so in the arms of a TASPer. Or better yet, eight of them (I already used my hug from David). You guys better visit soon, and I'll see what I can do.

Homer and a hella good time

DS is fun. I am over my head and somewhat behind, but all goes well nevertheless. I realize now that this course is something entirely out of my comfort zone (ahh! classics!), but more importantly I'm starting to realize that that makes it awesomer. I am also taking creative writing in Spanish and a French language class. Tess and Jordan are in my DS Lit. section (seminar all over again) and Jordan is in my French. We make fun of the instructional videos.
As for the social life here, I can only describe it as rampant and both detrimental and supplemental to my intellectual experience. There is nothing better that talking about Plato or the human organ black market while eating some organic Berkeley food (by the way: it really is as awesome as people make it out to be).
I'm taking a sabattical from drama this year, but did decide to submit for a grant to produce my own play. I'm also getting involved in the literary magazine, English tutoring for Mexicans in New Haven schools, and the Yale Rumpus (w00t).
All in all, ca va fantastique, and I hope you all feel the same. Can't wait for the H/Y game. Hopefully I will have a futon by then so that some of y'all can visit me.

love,
josh

The First Thing

This is the very first thing I utterly HATE,abhor,despise about college. As some may know in Alabama one must be 19 before given the right to purchase tobacco. In high school the 19 yr-old population was slim. Of course there were smokers, many in fact. But only a select few actually smoked during or before school. In TWO of my fucking classes I have to sit near people who REAK of cigarette smoke. I mean, it smells better than marijuana but still. The second they walk in it just overwhelms you and you wanna cough and cover your mouth but you don't wanna seem like an big asshole. I don't hate smokers by any means, i have puffed many substances in my time(keyword*puff*). The least they could do is bathe in some Axe or Tag or some other deodorant before sitting near me. I even keep a spray can of Axe with me and I'd be more than willing to douse them in my arguably "better" smelling substance.

On an UNrelated topic. POST MORE!!! I know the first days must be overwhelming(as is the nasty ass smell of cig people-yes I've labeled them) but we/I/hopefully we wanna hear about it!!! Good luck to those who have yet to take placement tests and what not, I'm pretty sure those that attend Harvard have completed them. But newho Do post! or beware

Odysseus, at last, is home

Remember Odyssey, the show in which Greg appeared, on Chicago Public Radio? It's last broadcast will be September 30th. Is the wandering academic no longer a sympathetic cultural specimen? Did people just get annoyed with host Gretchen Helfrich's at-times-nagging drone and the program's utter lack of musical variety during the breaks in the interviews? Hard to say.

Omigod

All right, I'll admit, I'm not prone to such spontaneous utterances. But I was reading the driving directions to the Harvard parking lot for this weekend and it's 219 Western Avenue. And I thought for a second, hey, I'm going back to TASP (because T-House's address is 217 West Avenue). And then I realized it wasn't TASP and I was sad, until I realized a second later that this new place is pretty cool too. Still, can this ridiculous almost-confluence of addresses be a good omen? Let's hope it is. =)

Me too!

I am joining the fray: tomorrow, (Wednesday) I leave for Boston. Finally.

Katrina II

I'm very disturbed right now. I don't own a TV, so I've missed what I'm sure has been continual coverage on the disaster for the past few days; everything I knew about it was from the front page of newspapers and word of mouth. As soon as I saw today's news, though, my entire facade of alrightness shattered. Thousands dead? How is that even possible? How is it possible that people should be dying of "tropical" diseases in the United States? It hurts me even to think about the madness in the Superdome.

Thousands dead?