A New -Much Wilder- Chapter

Interestingly enough I just remembered that I didn't post yesterday and I felt bad about it on behalf of my viewership so here it goes. I woke up yesterday several times and then I fell asleep again until around 10:45 which is when I sprang out of bed because I thought I missed breakfast with my parents which woulda been bad cause they were leaving. Then I realized the reason I woke up in the first place is that my mother was knocking on the door, so I threw on some shoes and left the room. We drove around downtown Tally a little bit until we found a quaint little coffee shop to eat breakfast at. However, before we could get to the restaurant, an African-American homeless man named Eric (Arik?) stopped my parents and I so he could give me his two cents on college. They can be summarized thusly.

• I been here forty years
• I'm homeless
• I'm an orphan
• Think of yo parents
• Look at me son
• They worked so hard
• This is real important
• Son
• SON
• I seen girls fallin' down drunk with they legs open
• They be pregnant
• SON
• Look at me
• You look like a smart kid
• "He is" - My mom
• Son
• Don't give money to the other homeless guys cause they just spend it on booze
• Son
• Remember your parents

Needless to say my mother encouraged me to follow the advice of Eric and we were on our way. I got a BLT which was delicious cause tomato is the most underrated condiment of all time. The real treat of the morning was the sick as heck scooter that my parents bought me at my own bequest. This went nicely with the nerf basketball hoop that was also purchased for me. Once the hoop was installed, and I said goodbye to my parents until October, I took a little trip to the Leach center, which is the on campus gym. Neil, my roommate, had informed me that it was "sick" so to speak, so I did an independent investigation. I lifted weights and ran on the treadmill and drank water and led a healthy life for a whole 30 minutes! I checked out the basketball courts upstairs which were all in full use by 5-on-5 games. What happened next was a Toy Story like situation which is where whenever the game shifted to the opposite end of the court, several of us would scamper on to the free end to shoot around, but when the game shifted back we ran off. My mom texted me during this process and made me Snapchat pictures of what I was doing. I'm trying to ween her off of the constant communication she expects to have with me. I left the gym, took a shower, and accidentally fell asleep for about an hour. There was a concert in the courtyard so I walked over to Maddie's dorm and walked with her and her roommate over to the music. Earl Sweatshirt was unknown to me before the concert, and apparently Maddie too cause she hates rap music so she was just miserable the whole time. I ditched her to go get free food with Valentina and Angele at some "Taste of Tallahassee" event where there was a literal Smorgasbord of food from some tasty ass restaurants. Then we all went to my dorm to watch Pulp Fiction which also gave me the chance to send my roommate pictures of me with a couple of ladies on my bed, so he probably thinks I'm a slut. To be fair, I am. After Pulp Fiction, we went to see a midnight showing of the Princess Diaries with Olivia Friedly. To clarify, Olivia is a girl from Winter Park, not an actress in the Princess Diaries. I got home at 2 AM to find my roommate passed out after a night of heavy drinking. College life is indeed charming.
 

Back in Black (Garnet && Gold)

Ok listen up folks, the blog is revived and here's why. While I was at Winter Park high, too many people knew of the existence of this blog so I couldn't post the usual salty content. BUT FOLKS!!!! We've hit a reset button here at THE Florida State University. So where to begin...

I got my sleepy ass out of bed at about 7:45 to get in the car and get on my way. The characters along for the ride include me, my mother, and my father. Also, about 75 tons of my crap. Our first stop was to my grandma's house in Maitland. My mom had been dog-sitting one of her "clients" but since she was going out of town she had to give the key to my grandma which initiated another long sequence of hugs and goodbyes. We were about to leave but my dad realized he forgot the SunPass so we drove fifteen minutes back home to get it and thusly, we were on our way. The sounds of the road trip included a medley of NPR, classic rock, and my mom telling us she had to eat/pee/etc. I fell asleep a couple times which is how I survived. We got to FSU a little past noon and started hauling things up to the room. My mom put on my huge mattress topper but we had to let it aerate first so we went to get some lunch at "the Den." Mom was quickly turning into a hungry bear as the service was inexplicably too slow for her. Finally the food was delivered and my dad looked at his insignificant wrap and exclaimed, "glad we waited so long for this." The epitome of a dissatisfied old Jewish couple. We went back to my room and finished setting up as my parents became acquainted with my roommate, Neil. Neil seems like a really chill guy, and his major, Biology, is considerably more challenging than my majors, Communication and English. My side of the room has no posters or anything and his just has one thing: an American flag. I'm just glad it isn't a confederate flag cause going to FSU ya never know what you're gonna get. Mom was absolutely OBSESSED with my bed spread. She had the mattress topper, a sheet to go over that, a sheet to go over that, a duvet, and then- get this- a Pendleton blanket in garnet, gold and navy. Then there was the body pillow, the two custom ordered pillows, the monogrammed pillowcase, and the embroidered pillow case. For those of you playing along at home that makes FIVE PILLOWS FOR ONE BOY. I shepherded my parents out and lay down for a nap. I walked around and took in the sights. Before I knew it it was time to go out to dinner with the folks. I had invited Caroline cause she was a family friend in addition to being my friend. Luckily she had a meeting and couldn't wake it so I got to go alone. I don't remember the last time I went out with just my parents but we had all gotten our fill of each other during the car ride and room assembly so dinner was kinda tense at first but it got better as time went on cause mom and dad started talking about how I've actually matured in the last four years. We all went back to my room again so we could bring up the stuff we had forgotten earlier which included food and water, ya know, the essentials. Mom had decided that my feet were the worst things she's ever smelled so she bought me Febreeze and some deodorizing thingies for my closet. I used the restroom and my mom suggested I test out that Febreeze so yeah, it was time for them to leave, especially cause I'll see them in literally a month for Joseph's Bar Mitzvah.

Once the parental retired to their hotel for the night I tested out the shower and went to hang out with my friend Jensen who I worked with at the JCC a couple years ago. Jensen is so incredibly cool, and her roommate was chill, but some weird ginger girl was there who introduced herself as, "your worst nightmare." "Oh, I don't like you," I said poignantly. Then ginger called her "almost boyfriend," Mitch, to come hang out. Mitch was arguably weirder than ginger girl cause Mitch was trying to court this b but doing a bad job cause everyone was trying to chill but he was making weird banshee noises and she was also being loud and it was just too much and reminded me too much of that one weird house party and working with kids. They busted out a pack of Uno cards and I intentionally messed up the game cause I'm kinda an asshole and was kinda annoyed by Mitch trying to be an alpha male when we was literally shorter than me and aggressively unintelligent. I did some more walking and came home to get my ass beat in 2k. I literally have no plans for the rest of the weekend so it may or may not be "lit." Until tomorrow <3

Welcome to Gatorland Y'all!

So today I went to the guitar concert because I had friends in it, and I had friends in the light booth, so why not? The reason why not was a little 12-year-old boy, who went by the mononym, 'Gator.' He's my friend Chloe's cousin and was brought along because she was babysitting him and doing lights. I first met Gator as he climbed into the light booth from the window, and I knew Chloe was bringing her cousin, but I didn't realize he'd be a floater. He gets in the room and immediately starts making Yo Mama jokes. "Yo mama is so dumb, that she bought a ticket to go see Xbox Live!" He was real proud of himself. He gave us his credentials which were as follows: wrestler, football player, used to play Minecraft when he was like 7 or something cause that game is for babies, skateboarder (shred it up brah), and drank 3 red bulls for breakfast. Gator would have been alright, but like a wild moose, he felt his authority challenged and so he tried to fight me in the confined lighting booth. I don't wanna brag, but I was about two feet taller than this kid, and he was kind of small, so I'd just bear hug him cause I didn't know what to do.

Some Gator quotes:

• "I've kissed 8 girls"
• "I kissed 3 girls at once"
• "I like peanuts"
• "I have 100 times more Instagram followers than you"
• "Woah, you have a Facebook?!"

Eventually, Gator, Chloe and I went outside because we were making a ruckus, and then Gator decided we

were going have an to all out fight. He started circling me like a tiny ass shark, and then he kept trying to grab me! I have got to hand it to this kid, he has balls, but he kept trying to punch me, so I just picked him up. Then I didn't know what to do with him so I put him back down, and he came at me again! He kept punching me in the stomach saying, "I bet you didn't feel that!" He made me sad. I went in the lighting booth and proceeded to lock him out. We let Chloe in too, but apparently, while the door was closing, Gator taped it so he could get in whenever. That isn't to say he was really locked out because he had the window, but it's nice to have options. At a certain point in the evening, we hadn't seen him for a while, so I open the door of the booth, and he's there talking to some 20-something-year-old and checking out his skateboard. According to Gator, he used to have a professional sponsor.

Somehow the concert lasted over two and a half hours, a fact that Gator would not let us forget. I was scrolling through Facebook and came upon a photo of Donald Trump, at which point Gator informed me that Trump was a "douche bag." Gator also told me that he's kissed more girls than me and that, "your mom doesn't count." He even had me send his photograph to Ashley Lazarski.

Towards the end of the concert Gator was getting to be a bit too much, so when it ended, we were all extremely relieved. The pièce de résistance was when he decided to slide down the banisters in the auditorium stairwell, and that was when it was time to call it quits. For more Gator updates, follow his Instagram @GPFLUG7 where you will notice that he has significantly fewer followers than me!!!

Kittens Part III: Cataclysm

I woke up this morning at 3 am because due to a complicated series of events: I had my mom's phone charging in my room but it was supposed to be used to wake Joseph up, who apparently passed the 3 am shift off to my mom who, when confronted about it at 3 am, decided she didn't want that shift, so I had to do it. Earlier in the evening, a couple of Hursh family members showed up to visit the kittens but decided to call it quits after Caroline picked up one of the kittens who had pissed itself. **IMPORTANT DETAIL** Anyway, it's much too early to function and I'm getting the bottles and formula and what-have-you so that I can feed the kittens who, at this point, kept trying to walk off the edge of the dining room table. One of the kittens could not get enough food, and the other didn't want any, and I had somehow gotten a considerable amount of formula on both of my hands as well as both of the kittens.

After loading them up with some sweet, sweet caloric goodness, I had to burp them, and then do... the thing... to make them pee. Well recalling what had happened earlier, I figured that they obviously didn't have to be molested to go pee, so I just put them back in the cage.

I woke up at 7 to lots of yelling and mom telling me that I had to drive Sophie to school because one of the kitten's stomach got all hard because it didn't pee. So that was rough. That's basically when mom decided the cats were not worth the trouble, but then she had to tell the family. I was kinda sad, but Sophie, who had not taken care of these cats whatsoever, started WAILING on the ride home. She made an impassioned plea regarding the fact that the cats were her only friends, and that she, "fed them once the other night!" Basically, she cried a lot. I guess the petition didn't work but thanks for trying y'all. Also, my mom says a parrot might be next.

The End of an Era

Whenever I think of school ending, I pretty much immediately jump to that one song from High School Musical II which is definitely a generational defect. So the day that school really ended for me was somewhere in the second quarter, but when I stopped having to go to school by law was this last Friday. It felt like any other Friday, except we did absolutely nothing in class, except for chem, which I arrived at thirty minutes late. It really tells you just how little regard I have for that joke of a class. Nobody was paying attention, and I was blatantly on my phone, but that didn't stop her from telling me specifically to get with the rest of the class. Whenever she yells, Akshay and Sloan slyly put away the phones on which they are covertly playing video games. The last time walking out of that class was a freaking catharsis. It was like just being there made me feel like I was wasting time that could've been used giving back to the less fortunate. One time, to prove a point, I pulled up a video of paint drying. I hope that I passed on this brashness to some of the juniors, whose names I did not care enough about to learn until the last month of school. Hannah, Hannah, Maddie, Ellie, Matt, Kevin and others.

It's so weird to think about the fact that I really don't have class anymore until I go to FSU in the fall, but it doesn't feel like I don't have school because I have like 8 more exams, and then theatre too. I was going to direct another one-act, and like I told Mr. Carter, "third time's the charm!" But, then Carter insisted I act which means I have to find a monologue to do so I think I might just recite the intro to Nineteen Kids and Counting. With all this free time I've just been staying out til much earlier in the morning, so I suspect that at some point next week, my sleep schedule will flip and I'll become nocturnal. Honestly, being nocturnal would make it easier to take care of the cats, because I was supposed to feed them at 3 am today, but I slept through my alarm for six hours, and then I woke up at six and panicked as I ran to my brother's room to get the cats and feed them in my dining room. They would not stop trying to jump off the table so I eventually just covered them with the towel as I nursed them one at a time. The real challenge was getting them to defecate after their meal. I did the thing with the paper towel and the warm water, cause in nature the mom cat just licks "their parts" so that's what I had to simulate (note the choice of words was 'simulate,' and not 'stimulate'). The problem was that they weren't going, but instead, just making a lot of scary noises that led me to believe I was scarring them for the rest of their nine lives. I woke Sophie up, but she wouldn't do it, so I woke Joseph up, and he informed me that he had already covered my 3 am shift for me but he'd do this anyway, and so I went back to sleep til 9. I'd like to thank Obama for having my mom return the cats home.

Cats

So I'm lying in bed, watching some How To Get Away with Murder, on the 'flix, and all of a sudden I get a call from my mom. It starts with the regular spiel about how I need to clean my room and yadda yadda, but then she tells me that she decided that I'm going to be taking care of a couple 3-week-old kittens. I did not sign up for that, and it's pretty typical for my mom to get excited about an idea and then just go ahead and do it. That happens to be how Rosebud was brought home because dad was on a business trip to Atlanta. Mom calls me from the car where she already has the kittens. Great. I don't dislike cats, in fact, I like them and I wanted one when I was younger, but I was never allowed to have one because my mom didn't want one. Now I have two? Anyway, mom brings them home and plops their cage down in the middle of my- still dirty- room. Of course, as soon as we start to hold them we're all in love, but that's when the real bombs start dropping. The first bomb is that after we feed them we have to "rub them with a warm washcloth." "Warm what?" Sophie asks. "Their parts," mom explains. Ohhhhh nope. Count me out. Next bomb: they need to be fed every three hours, which means that because they're my responsibility, mom explains, I have to wake up at 3 and feed them. At this point, I'd like to acknowledge the fact that my mom either didn't know about the three weeks of IB exams or didn't care because she had determined that these kittens were a necessary responsibility for me. I definitely could not wake up  every three hours to feed these kittens, which is what I told mom, who still did not believe that studying and taking exams constitute 'doing things on my days off.' She had told me last week that, since I'm gonna be spending a lot of time at home, I'll get to help clean the house. That sure is a funny way you got of lookin at things, Steph. Anywho, my mom took the kittens back to the vet cause that's where they go every day to be monitored, but now she doesn't want to take them home again, even though I don't have a morning exam for another week.

Sign my petition to tell Obama to tell my mom to let me keep the kittens.
https://wh.gov/ioPHO

How Do You Measure a Four Day Trip to Tampa?

I had no performance friday so it was just like, do whatever I feel like. I went to an improv workshop with some big sweaty guy, but watching other teenagers do improv is so incredibly painful because they all do whatever they think will be funny for teenagers, and, spoiler alert, it’s rarely funny. I left early and my friend Gabe and I hung out by the vending machines while he flirted with girls and I just tried to get them to read my blog. Neither of us really succeeded. Afterwards I went to a writing workshop with this teacher who started off talking about the definition of playwright, and then ended with doing other stuff. This one kid would not stop asking stupid questions so I just sat on my phone and wrote a play about Ted Cruz being the Zodiac Killer. We were all supposed to write scenes so I just went with an idea I had already started. The kid asked questions until the end of the session and finally the instructor guy was like, “how about I just read what you wrote after class?” “Oh I didn’t write anything,” replied the kid. It was a two-part workshop so we decided to not come back for fear of dealing with the annoying kid. Drama kids are better at just avoiding problems than confronting them, and that’s the way we like it!

Lunch was overpriced pizza, but overpriced can be used to describe every meal here except the first night when we had mall food court Chinese food. I went with a group to a musical theater workshop where I stayed in the back because I’m a much better rapper than a singer, and if you’ve heard me rap, then you know my singing is atrocious. We had to leave after that and go to some fancy dinner, which is code for ‘not a lot of food.’ Then I watched/slept through a performance of Romeo and Juliet, except before it started, thespians demonstrated exactly why they are the worst people to do anything with. They started doing the wave, but instead of the traditional way, they just dabbed around the auditorium. Then when the lights went out, they used the freaking flashlights on their phones to communicate in morse code. I fell asleep seven times during Romeo and Juliet, but it was only really bad because I started snoring in the third act. When it ended, we were all thankful, and we headed back to our hotel. All of the guys, except Daniel Crasnow, went to go play poker with Mr. Carter, who beat us all. We ordered pizza and rode the elevator down with a very very drunk girl. On the way back up a bunch of old men asked for our pizza. After we ate we began to execute our insane prank. So Mr. Carter’s suite was connected to the other group of guys’ suite so we bugged our way into his room and I dropped my Bluetooth speaker behind the chair. We connected it to Gabe’s phone which I had recorded the phrase, “are you living your life to the fullest?” So I had to go back to my room but I made sure Gabe knew to keep playing it. I got the following chain of messages:

Monologues Saturday! GoNNa WiNG iT!

A Snazzy Title

Greetings from Tampa!

I’m in Tampa right now at the Florida State Thespian Festival and I am PO’d. I am writing this after performing our ensemble scene but I will get to that.

I took two workshops today, both about playwriting. The first one was a little wacky because the lady running it didn’t have us practice writing or tell us about the industry, but she did have us release each of our chakras. Before we could release our chakras, we had to find our hidden impulses by lying on the ground and thinking about memories. My hidden impulse was to leave, but not before making the class into a joke. The lady called people up to share, and as they shared they had to sway and rotate in place. It would start off with “I am __ years old. I do this. I see that. I feel this.” All in the present tense. The first two people tell stories about literally the worst moments in their entire lives. I told something a lil less dramatic:

I’m 17. I’m at the Florida State Thespian Festival in Tampa. I am excited for the workshops, especially the improv one. Elliott, JP and I go to a workshop. We have fun. I perform a scene about a sock filled with butter. I leave and I see my friend Annie from work. She and I hug. I see my friends leaving and I am running after them. Running. Running. I know that if I’m not with a buddy I will be in trouble with Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter has a beard that’s pretty crazy. I see my friends going on an escalator in the distance. I run to catch up but another group is about to cut me off. I leap onto the escalator but my ankle buckles and I fall. I try to be strong. There are pretty girls all around. I use inner strength to not cry (for the girls). Elliott’s mom is the chaperone. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine.” I’m not fine. I am sweating profusely. I keep my arms down to hide pit stains. I hobble off of the escalator and walk out onto the terrace. I watch Elliott practice his monologues. I want an ibuprofen. Mr. Carter arrives on the scene. He asks if I need to call my parents. “I’m fine.” I’m not fine. The thespian dance is that night but I avoid it. I go home. I go to the hospital. The doctor gives me a brace. I wear the brace for a week. “Eh.” 2 months later I am in theater class. I am doing an ensemble scene with Jomari. Jomari is pretty. Jomari has a website called Jomari.com. We perform a scene from Twilight. Rounds of applause. I go back to my seat and trip and sprain my ankle again.

The next workshop was all about creating podcasts because they have such a far reach. A non-traditional playwriting workshop because it had nothing to do with writing. I told the guy that my co-Vice President, Julia Schmidt, was Ira Glass’s cousin. Thanks for letting me name drop Ira, Julia.  Then I got up and had to tell my story.

So our ensemble scene. Carter has us run it twice an hour before we performed, and he gave us some really constructive notes. It got progressively better. Like it was master craft level of performance. So we all make it into the room on time, unlike when we were missing Chloe at districts right when we were about to perform. I slated, “Hello! We are Freid & Co.” It went great. We had to move a table and two chairs to the center of the room, and later in the scene, I’d have to physically flip the table and then Julia would put it back. We made sure it wasn’t too heavy. It SEEMED STURDY. So we start this scene and it’s going great, but then James does some blocking where he jumps up on a table and walks to the end. Well, this rickety ass table started to tilt over, and the end near me gradually rose up in the air. I had a line, but also saw James about to fall on his ass, so I slammed my hand on the rising end of the table to keep it from falling, and I delivered my line without acknowledging my heroics. We finished the scene, which ends with my gay lover pulling a gun (plastic grapes in this scene) and shooting blanks at everyone. Funny right?! Uniquely comedic?! A bit absurd?! YEAH! All of these were decisions made on purpose. We get our results and they give us an ‘excellent’ for not grounding the scene in reality. I disagreed with this choice and the language I use was colorful to describe how I felt.

The rest of the night was drab. I ate dinner, I saw a play, I went to bed. It turns out WiFi is $13 a night, though, so like EFF THAT!!!! I get a bed to myself which is definitely one of the best parts of this entire trip.

Another Day in Paradise

So this morning I woke up at 6:30 and pulled a real Jacob by remembering I hadn't finished last night's homework. I started typing it up, expecting to have all the time I needed because we get to school late anyway, but then Sophie started screaming at me to get ready because we had to actually get to school on time today for some BS standardized writing test she had to take. I told her that she couldn't just demand people to move faster in the mornings when she makes us late every single day. Then she yelled at me, and my mom yelled at me, so I got moving. I grabbed my stuff off the printer and my lunch and got my ass in the car. Half of my paper didn't print because nobody got ink for the printer, so that's just a sad little fact. We started driving and Sophie was reviewing literary terms. "Point of view, third person perspective, imagery," she read off. Then she started naming transition words. "Is consequently a good one?" she asked me. My mom suggested she focus more on the spelling than the words. I knew she was trying to be helpful, but I said "good one mom!" Then Sophie was offended because she thought mom had just insulted her so she started whining. "I'm serious! Spell course, as in 'of course'." She spelled it C-O-R-S-E. Mom corrected her: C-O-A-R-S-E. Ok so that was ridiculous

I got to school, and I started walking through the hall when all of a sudden a stout black lady grabbed my arm. She said, "I thought about you yesterday because you are so funny!" I had no idea who the hell that woman was. I said thanks and kept walking. Then it dawned on me that she was the substitute teacher from psychology a week ago when I did stand up comedy for 45 minutes in class. But then if the sub liked me... How did I get in trouble the next week for being distracting in class??? I got to first period and I sat through math class only so that I could have my teacher print my thing for me. The most difficult part of the day was trying to unwrap a Moon Pie in history without Miss Rushing hearing or Drew getting pissed off. Well in my effort to quietly open the plastic wrapper, I spent 15 minutes just making noise. It's a struggle we can all identify with.

After school, I had to go to Miss Ponti's room to talk about ToK, but all that really happened was she told Cristy and me that our presentation was pretty much completely wrong. So that was disheartening. Then as Cristy and I were going to our respective afternoon destinations, we ran into a police officer who asked us for our 'certificates' whatever that meant. I thought he was just making a joke like when Josh Schwartz's dad pretended to be a truant officer when he saw me at Panera on IB senior skip day. I acted like I was pretending to find a certificate and then just kinda laughed, waiting for him to stop the ruse. Then Cristy called him Jimmy and I realized he was her soccer coach and was asking her for a certificate and I just kinda looked like an idiot.

Tonight's dinner was a nice homecooked burrito from Tijuana Flats, and I know exactly what my mom would say if she read that. "Well would you have rather I cooked??" No, I would not rather that. I spent the rest of the night watching a combination of Criminal Minds and NBA basketball. My mom asked me how I know so much about basketball and I said, "well I've got to do something while I'm not studying."

Back on Track

P-p-p-pizza for dinner, that's how I start my night. I came home tonight after rehearsing for The Hobbit, and I am covered in glitter and glue. I'd like to give a big ol' shout out to Julia Schmidt who sprayed me with glitter: Thanks, Champion. Being an eighth of a dragon is a lot more fun than I thought it would be, and a lot of that is because I actually have free time for the first time in three years. I even worked at the JCC for a couple days after school. Of course, while I was there, all of the kids I had over the summer decided to go back to their regular routine of being allergic to boys, so that just means they yelled every time they saw me. I asked one little girl whether I should go to UF or FSU and she said, "Uhh both. One in the morning and one in the afternoon." She is going places.

So essentially the only thing I really have left to do before I graduate is finish up my chemistry IA but that is proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be. Although I read the list of chemicals I needed to her, somehow I ended up having the wrong concentration of something today so I basically had to throw out my data. I went up to her and said, "so my reactions are happening really fast." Then she asked the class, "did anyone here overhear what I said to Jacob yesterday??" No one answered so she explained to me that I asked for the wrong concentration yesterday. Interesting. Not pointing fingers, just noting an interesting anomaly. Our group 4 presentation is scheduled for the same time as the last tech rehearsal for The Hobbit, and where I thought I was getting to just skip group 4, it looks like Emily Wagg and I will now have to be the group's lone presenters for the first half hour. The only problem is neither of us understand the science behind our project because our project doesn't really use science... (gotcha-pack.weebly.com).

Honestly, I don't know why I've come to school for the last two weeks because we've done hardly anything, but if I say that to my parents, they'll say, "then why do you have so many missing assignments?" And I really have just not found a good answer for that yet. When I come up with one, I'll share it on here. Until then, come see Chushingura, October 8, 9, and 10!

All Banged Up: Swing, Swang, Swunged

Howdy neighbors! So it's been about two weeks since this story took place and yet it is still fresh in my mind because my wrist is in constant pain. As many of you friends know, or may not know, my birthday was on the sixteenth, and as an eighteen-year-old, I am now free to buy cigarettes, lotto tickets, and do serious jail time along with other fun and dangerous things! The best part about my birthday is that it always falls on a four day weekend so I get to party every single day of it. Classic me. That Sunday of my four day birthday weekend is where our story begins. I see a snapchat of my friends from work (Gera, Taylor, and Eliana) and it says 'going to New Smyrna!' I try to get in on the fun and so I message them back asking if they wanna pick me up, fully expecting them to say no. They were at my house in 15 minutes and we hit the road listening to a mix of Drake and The Jacob Freid Experience on Spotify. Gera was driving and he parked his dad's freaking enormous jeep outside of this tiny French sandwich place. Gera and I were the only ones who were hungry so I try to order a Cuban sandwich, which they serve at almost every sandwich place except THIS ONE apparently. I got a regular turkey and cheese. Apparently they don't serve tomatoes or pickles so yeah, I was a lil worked up about them calling themselves a sandwich shop. We ate our sandwiches on the beach and my sandwich was SO GOOD it tasted like one of those classic Quizno's sandwiches, which were the bomb. We drove up and down the beach as my friends exchanged news with me about the hot goss at the JCC. The 411, if you will.

After the beach closed when the sun started to go down, we headed on over to a wings place. I thought we were gonna eat wings, which I wasn't opposed to, but apparently we were just there to take a picture on the dock. I definitely took Gera's phone and snapchatted our boss from work. We tried to get into a nature reserve, but it was locked, and my plan of just driving in and spending the night was vetoed because Taylor had to get home and feed her dogs. We decided to go to a little Taco & Ice Cream shack on the side of the road. They had these fire pits outside but ours was broken, so I just burned whatever paper was in my pockets. It turns out all I had were those 'do not consume' bags that you find inside new coats. I set them on fire. I think they must've been bad for the environment because Karma happened pretty soon after. I saw a 7-11 next door, so I walked through an empty parking lot, over a little wall, and into the 7-11 to buy two $5 scratch-off tickets, that won me zero dollars. I went to a sketchy bathroom that was only accessible from the shadowy back entrance and read some graffiti slandering Jeb Bush. I was scared of this sketchy bathroom, so I ran back to the little wall, climbed back over, started running, and immediately tripped in the dark parking lot. I looked like a rocking horse because I fell forward onto my hands, and used the momentum forward to get right back up and keep running toward my friends. They said they didn't see me fall but heard it. I was in a lot of pain and both knees and both palms were bleeding. I went up to the lady at the Taco & Ice Cream shack and said, "I got in a fist fight with the ground... And the ground won. Can I have some band-aids?" She was confused so I showed her my bloody palms and she gave me a few band aids.

The next stop on our list was supposed to be some Disney adventure nature trail thing that I'd never heard of, but Taylor's phobia of deer kept us from going there, so we went to the Grand Floridian instead. I'm not sure why we went exactly, but I do know that I spoke with an English accent and called Gera my 'man servant' several times, in order to fit in with the crowd. We couldn't decide where to eat, so we drove out to downtown Disney and busted a few moves in the crowd. I'll be honest: I whipped like 17 times and my friends cringed. We wound up at this restaurant called Portabellos that was Italian, expensive, and delicious. At this point, my left wrist was in real pain from my little fall. We walk in and there's a big bowl of toothpicks. "Do you think these are free?" I asked Gera. He said yeah, so I stuffed a couple in my pocket. We walked to the rear of the restaurant, where the bathrooms were, and I saw, on a table that was about to be bussed: two fresh, untouched cannolis. I went to the bathroom and Gera and I knew what had to happen. We walked out of the bathroom, Gera stood in front of me as I took one of my toothpicks, inserted it into the cannoli, palmed the cannoli, and walked out of the restaurant. I can't tell you whether or not I ate it, but I can tell you it tasted like pumpkin. We all sat at a table and I ordered the milk-braised pork shoulder. It was deliciously expensive. Gera told the waitress it was my birthday so they brought me out a chocolate cupcake, and in an effort to share it with my friends, I accidentally dropped a piece of chocolate on Gera's lap. בחושה עם שוקולד. Who cares, I already had eaten my desert. We left Portabellos, I did some mean whips in downtown Disney, and I went home.

The next week of school was lame. I tried to get my mom to take me to the doctor to get my wrist checked out, but she asked dad if they would just tell her it was a sprain, NOT THAT MY DAD IS A ORTHOPEDIC DOCTOR. I ended up just never seeing a doctor about it, but so life goes. The weekend, however, was once again wild. On Friday night, Jake Shepherd, who was still in town somehow, asked me to go swing dancing with him, Drew, and Ben Blakeley. I was worried about my wrist being still sprained, but it was actually fun and pretty easy. Jake Shep taught me a variety of moves, but then he went off and danced with a stranger and it was crazy good! Like the part of Swing Kids I was awake for in Miss Rushing's class. It was about 11 and Drew and Ben decided to go, so it was just Jake and I. Jake, who was running on three hours of sleep, said he should probably get home, but wouldn't mind some food first. I wasn't opposed to fast food, but it wouldn't be my first choice. I asked Siri what was open around me. "Hey Jake," I asked, already knowing the answer to my question, "do you want to go to a Sushi & Korean Barbeque restaurant that's open till 2 a.m.?" Jake did a 180, and we headed towards our mysterious restaurant destination. Both he and I thought it would be some hole-in-the-wall waffle house style place, but when we got there, our immediate thought was that this giant warehouse probably has people here who are gonna beat us up. We walk in and could not have been more confused and surprised. It was like a post-modern style of techno decor in an all-you-can-eat style sit down setting. If it sounds confusing, that's because it was. For $20 each, we each got unlimited meat, salad, and sushi rolls. In a Drake and Josh-esque scenario, we start off by accidentally getting way too much sushi. We look around for the meat but just find a salad bar. It turns out you order the meat. It took about 10 minutes to get to us, but the waiter brought out a plate of beef. Jake had been the one to ask for it, so I asked him if I could have some. He said yeah, so I took my chopsticks and popped some meat into my mouth. It was cold and wet, so I figured it was pickled, and I deftly used my chopsticks to remove the meat from my mouth and put it onto a plate to the side. Well hey howdy hey, it turns out the meat was RAW and the STOVE RIGHT BETWEEN US was used for COOKING the RAW MEAT. I was 85% sure I was going to die that night because I had swallowed some of the raw beef. By the time the plate of raw pork came out, I was a master chef, but neither Jake nor I were very much hungry anymore. It was at that time when we both noticed the part of the menu that said, "if more than a half pound of food is left on your plate, an extra $20 will be charged." It suddenly became a Man VS Food challenge as I worked on the meat and Jake worked on the Sushi. I started to doubt they actually had a scale back in the kitchen to weigh food on, so we stopped eating, paid the bills, and drove home listening to a little bit of Gwen Stefani.

A dream I had, relating to the mortality I felt after eating raw beef.

 So the people who were there were vague, but I know James was there, my cousin Max, and possibly Julia, Jake, and Paul, and essentially what happens is James has a heart attack at some indistinguishable location, and we don't have a car, so I say to siri "What is the closest hospital" and she takes me to a children's hospital on the outskirts of New York City, but obviously they can't help James because it's a children's hospital, and all of a sudden James is lying on a gurney and I push him back to the main road, and that's when other people show up, and my cousin Max talks to me about ToK, and we get into New York City, and we find this nice restaurant and everyone abandons James to go eat, except me. I have no idea what to do because we have no idea if James it alive or dead at this point because no one did anything to try and save him so I'm waiting with a gurney on a street corner in New York City at night, when this lesbian turns to me and tells me that she helps out children, and has at least 10-15 children she helps out, and she gives me this little grenade, and I pull the pin, and somehow I know that this means an emergency vehicle is coming, but when it gets here, it's A. a giant black Hummer and B. driven by James Robinson (who is also still on the gurney). We get the gurney in the back row of seats, and then James gets off of the Gurney and sits in the front seat, so I have to sit in the cramped back seat with the gurney for the drive to the hospital, but by that time, James is already better.

The next day I had to mail back a suit I bought on Amazon during Cyber Monday because my debit card got maxed out trying to buy an XBox, so I had to return the suit to get back the money. It turns out that ordering suits off the internet but not checking your size first will lead to the suit not fitting you at all. I had been putting it off most of the day, but eventually, I had to go, so I looked up UPS drop off sites, and I got dressed in jeans, a jacket, and flip-flops, only because I thought it would be a short walk. Well, I was wrong. The drop box couldn't fit the size box I wanted to send, so I had to walk to the UPS store on Fairbanks while it was windy, and again, I was wearing flip-flops. The store was closed, so carrying my large box with me, I went to Starbucks to get a hot drink to reward myself for my dedication and bravery. Well, what I didn't expect was one of my kids from summer camp to say hi to me while I was dressed in the most ratchet manner conceivable, and not to mention, carrying a big box around. I headed back towards the drop box, but I first stopped into Peterbrooke to see my pal Caroline and steal samples of chocolate popcorn. Also, my feet were cold. The only reason I wasn't already home was that I remembered the pick up at the drop box being 6 pm so I went back and waited til 6. The only other thing I planned on doing that night was going out to the Cheesecake Factory with the same friends I went swing dancing with. While I was standing around for the UPS man, I got a call from Ben Blakeley saying that the Cheesecake Factory doesn't take reservations and that he can pick me up so we could put our names down. I told him to meet me at the drop box. It was nearing 6:05 when Ben found me, and it was at that moment, 15 minutes into waiting for the UPS guy in the cold, I realized pickup only happened on Monday through Friday. Great. Ben and I drove to the Cheesecake Factory, got in line for a table for four, and were handed a buzzer as we were told the wait would be 50 minutes. I asked how far we could go with the buzzer for it to still work, and the hostess said we'd have to stay in the building. That was going to be a problem because I needed A) real shoes and B) money from my parents. Ben and I hatched a genius plan. The plan required cunning, speed, and the baby changing station in the men's bathroom. We decided to plant the buzzer inside the compartment of napkins inside the baby changing station of the big stall in the men's restroom of the Cheesecake Factory. We made a mad dash to the car, trying to remain inconspicuous, and we got back to my house where I grabbed shoes and money, but we were held up by my mother's interrogation of Ben (she would say she was being friendly and be mad at me for implying she was anything less, but we were still trying to get back to the restaurant before the buzzer went off and surprised some poor guy popping a squat). We got back to the restaurant, I ran inside as Ben parked the car. Someone was inside the stall with the buzzer when I got there but at least it hadn't started to- BZZZDT. Excuses flew through my head, "must've misplaced that while I was changing my son!" Thankfully this guy was no Inspector Clouseau so he just walked out of the stall and I ducked in and grabbed it. Ben and I got seated and waited for Drew and Jake. Jake, Ben and I each got a steak as Drew looked on in horror. I think the moral of this story is to not judge others.