The trials of finals week are over. Now I'm gonna do my best to totally wipe out my brain for the next quarter. The decomposition has already started. The last few nights I've found my self at Eddie's place drinking wine and (watching him) cooking pasta 3 o'clock in the morning. In 10 minutes Eddie and Pokerface is picking me up and we're going to the airport to catch a flight to Orlando. There we're gonna meet up with two other Italian guys, Mr Carrot and Maryjane. Spring break in Florida. Sweet. First a few days in Daytona Beach, then down along the coast all the way to Key West, and on the way back to Miami and Palm Beach. It's gonna be ÅSOM!3/21/2010
I Want to Break Free
The trials of finals week are over. Now I'm gonna do my best to totally wipe out my brain for the next quarter. The decomposition has already started. The last few nights I've found my self at Eddie's place drinking wine and (watching him) cooking pasta 3 o'clock in the morning. In 10 minutes Eddie and Pokerface is picking me up and we're going to the airport to catch a flight to Orlando. There we're gonna meet up with two other Italian guys, Mr Carrot and Maryjane. Spring break in Florida. Sweet. First a few days in Daytona Beach, then down along the coast all the way to Key West, and on the way back to Miami and Palm Beach. It's gonna be ÅSOM!3/11/2010
It's Not Over ('Til It's Over)
Dead Week. The week before finals. Time doesn't exist in the library. All watches on the fourth floor are broken. The gazes are fixed on the computer screens. No talking. The sounds of silence and keystrokes. Every once in a while someone rises to zombie to the bathroom. When the lights flicker at midnight it's a signal that the library closes. I move to the 24-hour study room. There is no air left inside. I push through the pain of burning eyes and lack of sleep. In a week it will be over and I will rise like the phoenix from the ashes.
Youtube is gone. He went home to Brazil two days ago. He was the first to sign my skateboard. Alvright will be next, he returns to Chile after the finals.
Youtube is gone. He went home to Brazil two days ago. He was the first to sign my skateboard. Alvright will be next, he returns to Chile after the finals.
3/07/2010
Party in the USA
In the US birthday celebrations go on for 3 days. On Wednesday was the dinner, Thursday we went downtown dancing, Friday we had a party in Eddie's backyard. There were burning torches and an ice bath with beer. In the future, if I'll be asked to define pure joy, I will describe it as speakers blasting, performing the moves of a Bollywood dance in sync with your friends. When I was 14, this would have been considered immature, and at the age of 23 you'd be ready for the grave, but at the age of 23, I've never felt so young and full of life. But maybe I'm getting old, because I'm exhausted after three days of partying.
I got really nice gifts, Youtube gave me Brazilian Havaianas and a bottle of expensive champagne that he "found" working in Aspen. For my tea addiction I got a UCSB travel cup and Pokerface and the Kid gave me a supercool hat that would've made me a Bob Marley lookalike if I'd kept me dreads. Mom and Grandma sent money, all gift packages were prohibited because of the weight limit on the flight back home. The money will be put to good use, I
guarantee you. More precisely they have turned into a weekend in the desert at the music festival Coachella in April and a spring break in Florida in two weeks. I just booked the tickets. Delta Airlines gave me a hard time booking flights, with error messages saying "the card holder's name is not valid, prefixes Mr, Sir, Dr, etc should not used in the name field". I've had the same problem opening a bank account. Here I am, with peace symbol earrings, without ever touching a gun, with a name that is short for a military title. Some things suck major balls.
I got really nice gifts, Youtube gave me Brazilian Havaianas and a bottle of expensive champagne that he "found" working in Aspen. For my tea addiction I got a UCSB travel cup and Pokerface and the Kid gave me a supercool hat that would've made me a Bob Marley lookalike if I'd kept me dreads. Mom and Grandma sent money, all gift packages were prohibited because of the weight limit on the flight back home. The money will be put to good use, I
guarantee you. More precisely they have turned into a weekend in the desert at the music festival Coachella in April and a spring break in Florida in two weeks. I just booked the tickets. Delta Airlines gave me a hard time booking flights, with error messages saying "the card holder's name is not valid, prefixes Mr, Sir, Dr, etc should not used in the name field". I've had the same problem opening a bank account. Here I am, with peace symbol earrings, without ever touching a gun, with a name that is short for a military title. Some things suck major balls.3/04/2010
Birthday
It's said that in vino veritas, but in this case it was the truth of a bottle of Jäger. One of the first weeks of fall, the group that later would form the Expressos was located in a liquor store. Youtube and I bought a bottle of Jägermeister together. The cashier eyed Youtube's ID. The strange ID confused him and he asked suspiciously:"When are you born?" Youtube aswered: "March 3rd, 1986". I was jumping up and down waving my passport, singing "we have the same birthday, we have the same birthday!". That was how we discovered that we were born the same date.
Today we celebrated the double Expresso birthday. Youtube is leaving on Sunday and spent the day in LA, so we decided to just have a small dinner with friends at night and then throw a party on Friday. We invited a buch of friends (kept it small with just 18 people) and asked Eddie to cook an Italian culinary speciality, gnocchi, which he had promised Youtube for six months. It was a lovely dinner, where everybody helped cooking the potato dumplings, while drinking wine and chatting. My room mates had secretly baked a cake and made banderols, it was really surprising and fun. And thank you for the overflow of well-wishes!
Today we celebrated the double Expresso birthday. Youtube is leaving on Sunday and spent the day in LA, so we decided to just have a small dinner with friends at night and then throw a party on Friday. We invited a buch of friends (kept it small with just 18 people) and asked Eddie to cook an Italian culinary speciality, gnocchi, which he had promised Youtube for six months. It was a lovely dinner, where everybody helped cooking the potato dumplings, while drinking wine and chatting. My room mates had secretly baked a cake and made banderols, it was really surprising and fun. And thank you for the overflow of well-wishes!
3/01/2010
Fuerza Chile!
Saturday morning when I woke up...or, ehrm, Saturday, when I woke up...I went on a pre-brunch walk along Goleta beach, frowning at the workers piling sand. Construction work, on a Saturday? Strange. How do the unions work here?
When I got back a while later, I read my email. The first one was from Mom begging me not to go surfing because of all the tsunami warnings in the Pacific. Tsunami warnings? It turned out that the tsunami surge from the Chilean earthquake the same morning had hit Santa Barbara while I was strolling. Apparently the water rose 2.3 ft, roughly 70 cm. That solved the mystery with the sand
piles. I didn't notice anything though, and felt a little disappointed that I missed a real tsunami.
Later, when I asked my Chilean friend Alvright about it, he told that no one he knew was hurt, but when he returns to Chile, the school is postponed one week.
When I got back a while later, I read my email. The first one was from Mom begging me not to go surfing because of all the tsunami warnings in the Pacific. Tsunami warnings? It turned out that the tsunami surge from the Chilean earthquake the same morning had hit Santa Barbara while I was strolling. Apparently the water rose 2.3 ft, roughly 70 cm. That solved the mystery with the sand
piles. I didn't notice anything though, and felt a little disappointed that I missed a real tsunami.Later, when I asked my Chilean friend Alvright about it, he told that no one he knew was hurt, but when he returns to Chile, the school is postponed one week.