Dirty South Ramblings (round two)

Carniv-A-l

2005-02-15T13:02:00.000-05:00

To my faithful readers (both of you), I apologize for the prolonged delay between this and my last post. I know it’s hard to continue to check the blog every hour and a half for updates when you are repeatedly disheartened, but as I may have already mentioned, my internet time here is limited and consumed primarily by AIM, sorting through emails and responding to the important ones, and looking for cheap flights/train fares to the rest of Europe.
We went to the coastal city of Cádiz (allegedly the oldest in Europe) last weekend. Well, by ‘we’ I mean myself and my friend Ian, by ‘last weekend’ I mean between 8pm and 7am Friday night/Saturday morning, and by ‘the coastal city of Cádiz’ I mean everywhere between the train station, a tapas bar, and one of the largest week-long street carnivals in the world. Sorry to disappoint you if I had momentarily aroused images of a romantic three-day, two-night beach retreat in a quaint Mediterranean town. Wrong weekend. Liken Cádiz’s “Carnival” (pronounce the vowels the Spanish way and accentuate the final syllable to make it sound less generic…or don’t) to a slightly less-rowdy Mardi Gras paced to last nine nights rather than one; a bonfire rather than a fireworks show. Not to say that there wasn’t plenty of partying to go around. It was just done the Spanish way: with barely enough moderation to last all night, every night, without exception, from Thursday night of one week to Saturday night of the next. Coming from a country in which it’s customary to consume enough drinks to go from sober to unable to walk before 3am rolls around, this was hard for me to understand at first, too. Must have something to do with the fact that 18-year-old Spanish kids don’t get in the habit of chugging every beer in sight before the keg runs out because they know the bartender will hand them another one whenever they’re ready.
Anyway, we caught the 8:05 train from Sevilla to Cádiz and arrived sometime after 10. Ian was disappointed to have to carry around the beer he bought for the ride—a couple friends who had gone to the Carnival the weekend before returned with stories of a train-ride-turned-pre-party, but the passengers the night that we went were mellower. We grabbed a couple bocadillos de calamari for dinner and followed the noise and multicolored Christmas-light signs that hung over the roads to the carnival. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, given the amount of variation that can exist between these types of events. Ian and I never encountered the quirky parades of scantily-clad dancers and grandiose floats featured on every day’s evening news. Making our way into the narrow streets and tiny plazas of Cádiz’s centro, we were met first by a series of stages, surrounded by growing crowds, upon which groups men dressed in costumes sang songs and performed skits. As the night went on the crowd thickened—not just around the scheduled events in the plazas, but around smaller clusters of costumed entertainers performing on curbs and street corners who perhaps didn’t make the cut to get on stage. Masks, makeup, wigs, 30-year-old clothes, ghosts (Franco’s dead and there’s no KKK here, so you’re not going to offend anyone in Spain by wearing nothing but bedsheets), goofy hats, eye patches and plastic hooks, men in dresses, and the guy from the Beefeater Gin bottle scooted past us, brushed by us, and eventually smashed against us as Cádiz engulfed the costumed masses and constricted them within its claustrophobic streets. Essentially, everything from Halloween on Franklin Street except open-container laws and men who start clearing the road at 2am had been teleported to Andalusia (you’re beginning to see why I love Spain so much).
So that was cool—costumes and drinking and Spanish music and all that good stuff. The best part of the excursion wasn’t the Carnival, though, but the group of people we wound up with. Sometime during the earlier part of the night, packed into some plaza like sardines, we wound up talking to a group of students from Valencia and Madrid. There were three Italian girls, two German guys, a dude from Israel, a girl from France, and a couple of Americans (but they didn’t count). As the only language we had in common was Spanish (with the exception of the Americans and the Israeli dude, who spoke perfect English), that’s what we spoke. We wandered the streets together for the rest of the night, either looking for places that still sold 40’s or for alleys to piss in (this is also accepted in Spain). I tried to explain to them that not all of the 50 million people in the States who voted Bush/Dick in 2004 are complete idiots, but since this is hard enough to do in English my success was limited. I can understand their concern.
At 4 or 5 so the European kids split with Ian and I to make their way back to their hostel, and Ian and I began asking people for directions to the train station, where we had planned to sleep and keep warm until the first train back to Sevilla. We found it before long, but discovered that it was closed until 6. Opting not to join the sketchballs sleeping outside the station doors, we walked back to the edge of the centro to big tent that sold chocolate con churros, a traditional midnight snack in Spain which consists of fried dough not unlike funnelcake dipped in melted chocolate. By then it was the coldest part of the night and the streets became wind tunnels for the brisk Mediterranean breeze. It wasn’t freezing or anything—probably no colder than 50 or 55F. It was the kind of cold that you don’t even notice when you step out the door of a warm house, but that chills you to the bone after 8 hours of exposure.
We returned to the train station expecting central heat and a place to rest until our train left at 7, but had no luck. Andalusians prefer to tough out their 2 months of mild cold every year with thick sheets and man-scarves rather than to drop the dough for heated buildings. After shivering for one more hour, the train (which WAS heated) felt more like a ski lodge. And back to Sevilla we went, to sleep away the rest of the weekend.

Hola (I'm in Spain)

2005-01-26T06:44:00.000-05:00

Due to popular demand, I have decided to revive the blog. An outdated and somewhat mediocre post followed by months of having better things to do caused me to remove the link from my profile. However, due to the fact that I am now 4000 miles away (in a little place I like to call Sevilla, Spain, in case you’ve been hibernating for the past 3 months) and rarely talk to my friends, it seems to have a purpose for the first time in its existence. For the record, you can check out the archives of my ex-roomie Mike’s blog at http://mikeethai.blogspot.com/ for periodical mentions of my shenanigans in the past semester when my blog was on vacation.
Anyway, as you all probably know, or at least the ones among you that I like, I am indeed in the land of Spain. I’ve been here for 2 weeks, and it’s hardly been the emotional rollercoaster ride they described at the pre-departure meeting for all the students on the trip. Let me clarify one thing before proceeding, though: this is not a good thing. See, according to one of the speakers at the meeting, the typical American college student goes through several emotional phases over the course of his study abroad experience. Phase One, also known as the “Honeymoon Stage,” takes place immediately upon arrival in the country. The student is excited, and sees the country from the eyes of a tourist—he is generally very happy. Phase Two takes place after a week or two, when the student starts to get homesick, experiences culture shock, is overwhelmed and frustrated, and becomes mildly depressed. The next phase—we’ll just call this one “Phase Three”—comes into play when the student begins adjusting to his surroundings, and once again is happy [ : ) ], but not as happy as in the honeymoon stage. Okay, anyway, in a nutshell, that stage lasts for the rest of the trip, and the motherfucker gets pissed off again when he goes home.
My emotional rollercoaster ride was a little more interesting. See, my honeymoon stage took place in the car ride to the RDU airport, where I was informed that my flight had been changed, and I had 20 minutes to get to the terminal before the plane left. I made it onto the plane despite being selected for some random security screening bullshit, and flew to Philly. There, my shaving kit, which contained $100 (I split my money up when I travel) was stolen when I accidentally left it unattended for 20 minutes. I flew to London pissed off (but did manage to get tipsy on the plane), and set off an alarm when I opened the door to an emergency exit in my sleep-deprived stupor. 9 hours jet-lagged (I had been in Colorado the two days before), and already $100 in the hole, I then arrived in Sevilla. No luggage. ‘This isn’t a big deal,’ I told myself patiently, ‘as long as the bags show up.’ Which they did…the one with my clothes arrived after 3 days (so I was wearing the same clothes for approx. 4 days), and the one with my shoes, contacts, and everything else after TWO FUCKING WEEKS. I gave up on it after about a week, and was about halfway through the pain-in-the-ass process of getting compensated for the shit that was in it, when I received word that it had finally arrived. So that’s good.
Despite being robbed of the emotional rollercoaster ride that I was promised, I have actually been having a pretty amazing time. The food is really, really, ridiculously good-tasting, the ladies=foxy, my classes (all 3 of them) are going to be easy, my host family is for the most part really nice, the beer is quality, the city is interesting, and there are a ton of things to do. Being able to go to bars is cool, and according to one of my Spanish friends, guys usually don’t dance at the clubs. As you can probably imagine, this may indeed prove to be my favorite part about Spain with the exception of the siesta (afternoon nap), which has become somewhat of a daily religious practice for me. This post is going to be really long if I go into depth about all this stuff, though, so I’m going to save it for another day. Keep checking back, and leave comments to let me know what’s going on in NC. Oh yea, and my pictures from the trip are posted at http://community.webshots.com/user/uncsharkbait2 .

PS: i got that skype thing (mike said everyone has it, i don´t really know if thats true), so if you have it, my skype name is the same as my sn...uncsharkbait. and if you know how to use it that´d be cool too, cuz i have no idea.

the life of a carnie

2004-07-13T20:16:00.000-05:00

I'm baaack! As many of you know, I spent the past month working as a carnie, first in East Rutherford, NJ (for about 3 weeks) and then in Allentown, Pennsylvania (for a week). For the most part, the work more or less sucked and I looked forward to getting back to NC pretty much from Day 1, but now that it's over with I'd have to say that I'm glad I did it. I'm going to try and make this post as short and sweet as possible due in part to the fact that it is now 1:30 in the morning and I'm helping to coach a wrestling camp for kids in the morning. So here goes;
"the life of a carnie":

Tuesday, June 14:
My cousin, JD (who will be a freshman at UNC in the fall, E-haus South...must have inherited some of my luck w/the housing dept), and I drove the 10 hours to the New Jersey Meadowlands in East Rutherford, about 15 minutes outside of NYC. We discovered, upon arriving, that the Meadowlands is actually a huge parking lot encircling the NY Giants' Stadium. We also discovered, in due time, that when the sun hits the asphalt of such a parking lot, and one spends his/her day in a little trailor with a big grill, it doesn't take long for things to get hot.

June 14 - June 16:
JD, the crew, and myself set up the trailors/tents/stands for the fair. It was a long and tedious process, made worse by the overall lack of any organization whatsoever that generally accompanies the carnie field.

June 17-July 5
JD left to go back to NC and his real job, and we more or less settled into a daily routine of working 8-12 hours per day--every day. We'd spend an hour or so setting up, then work until either 12 or 2am (depending on the day) and close. After that I'd read or watch a movie before crashing and sleeping hard until noonish the following day. This routine was broken only twice...One day i got up early and met my good friend Whitney, with whom some of you are acquainted/friends, at the beach for a little surf session to break the seemingly endless monotony. No offense to any of you Jersey folks, but in my humble opinion, the Jersey beaches are highly overrated. Maybe it was the particular day, but toe-high waves, 60-degree water in July, and dead bugs all over the place in and out of the water don't really do it for me. The only other time i broke the daily grind was when Carrie, Indera, Mark, Bill, and myself drove the 15 minutes into the city to check out Ground Zero and Times Square. Nothing too exciting save for my close encounter with a large subway rat (it jumped over my foot while i struggled in vain to free my camera and hand from a small hole in a fence around Ground Zero in an attempt to get a picture), a ride on the subway, and two slices of real New York pizza. Anyway, we tore down after closing on the night of Monday, July 5th, and left for Allentown, Pennsylvania the following day.

July 7 and 8:
Set up for the Allentown Sportsfest--a pretty cool little weekend festival in which amateur athletes in the area compete in any given sport from basketball to boxing to arm wrestling (no joke).

July 9-11
Back in the food trailor from 9am-11pm (although I personally only worked these hours on Saturday since Friday didn't start until mid-afternoon and I left after the lunch rush Sunday). I was headed south on the Pennsylvania Pike by 3:30 on Sunday, and found that I'd never before faced a 9-hour drive with such anticipation...I was really surprisingly glad to be on the road. I stopped in DC at 8ish to meed my good friend Kate, with whom some of you are acquainted/friends, and ate dinner at a place somewhat comparable to our beloved Cosmic Cantina back at The Hill before hitting the road again at 10pm.

July 12
I pulled into my driveway at about 2:30 in the morning. For some reason, I felt somewhat surprised to have made it home safely. Although the trip was about as long as a Christmas break and a Spring Break combined, it seemed like in a way I hadn't been gone but for a few days. It must have been the repetitiveness of so many consecutive days that caused the whole trip to run together in my memory, because when I look back in more detail I still recall quite vividly that time absolutely CRAWLED when I was standing in that trailor.

In retrospect, (as I said before) I appreciate the experience. Facing my nervousness about committing myself to leave home for such a long time to live and work in such a foreign and seemingly harsh environment; surrounding myself with people who at least in part are so radically different from almost everyone I had previously so much as encountered (although, on the other hand there were plenty of people who were not at all unlike myself, as there were several other college kids working for the summer); and to put it simply, working a true low-level position all proved to be aspects of the job from which I will certainly learn and grow.

Freshman Year: Recap...

2004-05-07T21:31:00.000-05:00

Okay, i know this has already been done countless times on blogs, livejournals, thefacebook.com profiles (more on this later), etc. Nevertheless, although I am certainly not being original in doing so, I feel somewhat obliged to include in this fine publication a recap, synopsis, summary, briefing, best of...etc...of my first year in college, which is now officially over. To mine, and everyone else's dismay, sorrow, excitement (if you are a huge weird nerd/geek who wants to be done with college and go work or something), grief, anxiety, etc. Here goes nuthin'. etc.

top 5 best parties:
-the most recent TEP party (which I know many of you disliked, however I got into the VIP room. so ha.)
-lambda chi block party (despite almost getting an alcohol ticket and getting called by my mom drunk)
-AEPi party (fund-raiser for dance marathon, i believe)
-Chi Psi Moat Party (not so much that particular party, but everything that happened prior to and after the party)
-rugby parties

top 2 best parties i MISSED:
-TEP street credit party (i was skiing at sugar mountain i believe)
-swim team party. Okay, I made it there for a little while, but i was late, the party was dry, and I missed Raymond Felton directing traffic.

top 2 best weeks of classes (i feel that it would be unfair to include vacation weeks in this category):
-the first week, during which I was introduced to my now very close friend, College
-the last week of second semester, right before finals, during which I was reminded of just how great college is

top 3 best trips:
-surfing in costa rica for spring break (despite spending 32 hours in a suburban)
-skiing in quebec (despite spending 45 hours in a van)
-shackleford banks with the maritime forest...i mean marine science class

top 3 best places to eat late at night (and often when drunk):
-gumby's pizza
-cosmic cantina
-time out

top 3 best classes:
-Spanish 2x and 3 with Scott Youngdahl (one of the best teachers I have ever had)
-FYS in Interdisciplinary Oceanographic Research (MASC 006D...interesting, easy course; really cool teacher; i made a lot of friends in the class; fun times)
- History 22 with Peter Filene (awesome professor; interesting, challenging, and engaging class)

bottom 3 worst classes:
-Econ 10 with Ralph Byrns (its just a sucky course and it was at 9am; the teacher was actually fine)
-Math 22 with Emily Rosenberg (terrible course, pathetically incompetant teacher)
-Music 41 with Nadas (painfully boring course, decent prof, heinous TA's)

number of times i went to church (at school):
-3

number of times i ate at top of lenoir or chase:
-230 (give or take a dozen or so...i ate my 200 for the year, then mooched a few)

number of times i went out for a run:
-3

number of basketball games i attended:
-15 (every single one except coastal carolina)

number of foreign countries i traveled to:
-2 (if canada counts...it WAS quebec though)

number of hours a day roomie slept during second semester (this is the last time i'm calling you out on this, mike):
-between 10 and 18...mostly in the afternoon/evening

number of friends who have come by the room multiple times and the roomie was asleep (ok second to last time):
-4, i believe

number of people i almost killed when i just barely made that exit off I-95 in a 15 passenger van on the way to quebec:
-12

number of hours after our scheduled moveout time me and mike actually signed out of the dorm:
-4...we signed up to move out by 6:15pm, got out a little after 10pm. the Office Manager, the Resident Director, and our RA were all pissed at us for being like the last ones out of the dorm. For some reason we figured it would take us like 3 hours to move out...in the words of mike "throw all our shit in a box and put the box in the car." not so. oh well, it turned out to be good times.

sports i started playing for the first time ever and got HYPED about:
-soccer
-capture the flag
-basketball
-beer pong

top 3 funniest friends when drunk:
-catherine
-james
-ralph
sorry guys, i had to throw that shit in. just know that you are not alone.

top 5 best/most watched movies/TV shows:
-family guy
-old school (cliche, yes)
-super troopers
-the simpsons
-office space
(notice the OC is NOT on this list...you people make me sick)

favorite beers:
-Imperial (only in costa rica)
-Newcastle Brown Ale
-Yuengling
-Corona
-Red Stripe
-Dos Equis
-anything brewed at Top of the Hill

and for those of you still reading...

top 11 other random things i need to include:
-puking on the first morning of college (hey, no one told me not to drink on an empty stomach)
-wooing Vel, the huge, yet incredibly friendly card-swiping lady at Lenoir
-sledding on skipper bowles drive with my roomie, the basketball team, and 1500 other residents of south campus
-pretty much getting laughed out of avalon after attempting to dance
-my (and everyone else's, come to think of it) love/hate relationship with the P2P
-superbowlbeerpizzafest2004 in my room...the only party we threw, but it went well. thanks in part to brandon and andy's drunken antics.
-playing beer pong for the first time in ryans room, CLEANING HOUSE going like 3-1 against a few veterans, then getting sloppy, losing 2 in a row, and barely making it home
-wheelbarrowing the roomie up to student health after he sprained both his ankles
-surfing in 46-degree water at masonboro island...my first trip w/the surf club...good times
-pizza and pokey stix study breaks at 2am with wheela and/or mikey thai
-thefacebook.com becoming the HOT SHIT within the last, like 4 days of the year. i don't know if people did it to stay in touch with friends or to put off studying for exams. i think it was a little more of the latter for me (just look at my profile its got like 500 thing on it). be sure to sign up if you haven't already!!! haha.

alrighty, well i know that was a long post, and i probly left like a million things out, but it had to be done. i figure you've all got a little more time now that it's summer anyway. since you've already spent like 10 hours reading this mofo yall also better leave a comment and say whats up. peaceout.
paul.

two semesters of college crammed into one night

2004-04-24T02:20:00.001-05:00

i love it. thats it. i love college. tonight...perfect. please allow me to gather my thoughts and explain.

6 hours ago, i was not looking forward to the upcoming summer. i felt that although my freshman year was a blast--i had experienced a lot, had a lot of fun, met a lot of cool people, etc.--something was missing. for those of you who attend unc, you doubtlessly are aware that this semester as a whole has been quite uneventful, to put it simply. there have only been a handful of good parties, a lot of studying on the part of everyone, and more than a few boring weekends. it's had its ups and downs, of course...i did go skiing like 3 times and surfing in costa rica...definitely wasn't a terrible semester by any means. but as a whole, this semester has lacked any craziness whatsoever. it has not been college.

consequently, i have not wanted it to be summer. i needed one night of craziness, spontaneuity, and of course, drunkeness; in a nutshell, one night of college at its finest. that night, my friends, was tonight.

this afternoon (friday afternoon, that is), i attended the RHA-sponsored Beach Bash or something party outside E-haus. they had the huge inflatable obstacle course thing out again, in addition to a little twirly ride thing (basically, you had to be there, cuz there's no way i'm gonna be able to explain this to you in my current semi-enibriated state). they also had basically all the free food you could eat (i got dead last in a watermelon-eating contest...i was full okay?). so anyway, this afternoon was fun and carefree and gooood.

but when the sun went down, things changed from fun and carefree and good or whatever to COLLEGE!!! the first event of the night turned out to be orr and jordan's "small get-together," complete with beer, music, AWESOME punch (call me a girl, i know) and of course, a few ladies...who left shortly...but it was still fun. excellent way to kick off the night; well done, boys. later, after switching groups a couple times, i rolled up to north campus and granville in a huge angry drunken mob cuz we missed the p2p. rob found an unattended fire extinguisher while taking a piss on hanes hall, picked it up, and, decked out in a wifebeater and cowboy hat and smoking a cig, sprayed it all along the walk through campus until it ran out. james got tipsy (literally...he was tipping over just trying to sit down). brooks bowman (wrestling buddy from high school like 3 years ago) and his friends set up a keg of amstel light on a SIDEWALK in front of a frat party (like on the street...forget about open container laws). i used my drunken diplomatic skills to keep an unnamed friend out of an alcohol-induced fight with brandon's newly-started fraternity. the cops had all but given up hope of getting anything done since there were literally about 15000 people out and about and going nuts. there were smashed beer cans and bottles littering every patch of grass within 50 yards of a frat house. there were parties and live bands and kegs lining south columbia and cameron. i hung out with some people i haven't hung out with in a long time. i think i saw nearly everyone i know at this school at some point. i even met a shitload of new people. and yes, i went to timeout with a bunch of my sloppy friends (at the request of drunk james). this is college. as we all experienced it the first week of our freshman year, which, in a just few short days, will be over.

this will most likely be my last post of the semester. there will be more to come over the summer, so keep checkin back and, of course, leavin comments. i hope you all do well on your exams, have great summers, and stay in touch. i'm gonna be at the beach at least one week this summer, and if you are reading this then theres probably a pretty good chance i'd love to have you come down for a day or two. if you can't make it, then gimme a call or an im and we'll work somethin else out.

quote of the night (submitted by Jena):
Joey (on the phone with Jeff): "Ay Jeff we're standin by a tree man, come find us!"
hahaha, i LOVE IT!!!

well, ladies and gents; its time for me to get some fuckin sleep now.

peaceout.

the 19th birthday/end of freshman year edition

2004-04-16T14:57:00.000-05:00

well i'm back in business after after busy couple of weeks. actually this whole semester has been that way; its finally starting to wind down though. which is kinda nice, in a way, because it's gonna be summer and stuff and its gonna be warm, and my life won't be so stressful. nonetheless, i am reasonably pissed that the year is almost over. there, i said it. the thing is, ITS FRESHMAN YEAR DUDE!! freshman year is the one year that you don't really have to worry about shit, you got plenty of time, you can do whatever. sophomore year, however, you better start getting your act together, buddy. congratulations, you are one year closer to a job and a boss, YOU FREAKING LOSER!!

something else is also bothering me.
fact: men reach their sexual peak at age 18.
fact: in approximately 7.5 hours i will no longer be 18.
fact: starting at midnight tonite--in just a few short hours--i will be counting down the days until flacidity, Viagra, and prostrate exams.
that's right, tomorrow i will be 19 years of age. call me a young'n, i know, as the vast majority of you are anywhere from a few months to more than 4 years older than me. now, with the exception of 22 and every birthday afterward (cuz after that, every year is one year closer to old age and death), 19 is probly one of the shittiest birthdays i have to look forward to. definitely the shittiest one to date. 18 was great; i had high school graduation, college, a kickass summer, and most of all, VOTING RIGHTS to look forward to. it was a little nostalgic, i guess, leaving my childhood behind and everything, and that letter telling me to sign up for selective services was a little depressing, but i had the world ahead of me. but 19?! seriously, what is the significance of your 19th birthday? well, as i already said, i will be PAST my sexual peak. need i say more? oh yea, i'm closer to 21 and being able to go to bars and stuff, at least legally. but come on. there's a darn good chance i'm gonna be drunk tonite (quite possibly at midnight, when "it all goes downhill," so to speak) and that has nothing to do with me being 21 or not. so really, that 21st birthday is just a semi-happy birthday; not that much of a difference.
anyway, i've never been so unenthusiastic about a birthday before. kinda sucks.

on a lighter note, however, this week has been pretty fun, and the upcoming weekend is by far the most promising in months (at least in chapel hill). lots of activities over the week, and parties over the weekend. now some may view it as luck that this fell upon the week of my birthday. i, however, don't believe in luck. i guess the word just got out. here's a brief overview:
wednesday evening: big free food thing outside morrison, with a huge air-filled moonwalk obstacle course thingy. on the bball court. basically, you just went in one hole and came out the other hole, and you could race people and shit. lets just say the birthday boy DESTROYED THE COMPETITION.
thursday evening: CRUNK-FEST, also outside morrison. more free food and drinks, loud music, and an impromptu slam dunk contest. good stuff.
friday night (aka tonite): BLOCK PARTY! several bands, all the alcohol i can take, from what i hear. so chances are, when the big 1-9 rolls around at midnight, i will be able to face it like a man. who's manhood is about to start gradually leaving him since his damn sexual peak is a thing of the past.
saturday night: swim team Heaven-to-Hell party at some offcampus apartments. since swimmers occupy three stories of the building, there will (from what i hear) be a full three levels (heaven, purgatory, hell) of various alcoholic beverages.

name the movie (i.e. in a COMMENT):
fuck you; fuck you; fuck you; you're cool; fuck you;
im out.

just a few little things...

2004-03-31T21:19:00.000-05:00

i'd just like to remind everyone that i have a blog, that you are supposed to read it, and most importantly that you are supposed to LEAVE SOME DAMN COMMENTS on the comment link thing i spent forever figuring out how to work. see, you all get to read my totally sweet stories as a means of procrastinating, fighting boredom, etc. i, however, do not have any totally sweet stories to read...my only pleasure comes from reading the comments you people leave. it sucks, therefore, when no one leaves any comments. i recently visited my suitemate orr's livejournal.com entry, and noticed that there are several comments for each post. that's when i realized that the amount of feedback i am getting on this site is UNACCEPTABLE! i spend hours each month (maybe?) writing posts, putting up totally sweet links, and what to i get? i'll tell you: ZERO COMMENTS half the time. also, for those of you who have not noticed, i now have a counter on the site that tells me how many visitors i have had. so far, i'd have to say it could be better. much better. a note to those of you who have commented on my blog: julianne, mike, orr, lauren maloney, anyone else i'm leaving out, i appreciate it. understand, people, that i am not asking each one of you to comment on each one of my posts, but lets be RATIONAL. lets not go crazy and FLIP OUT and LOSE OUR COMPOSURE. just start leaving SOME COCK-WRANGLIN, MOTHERFUCKIN, CONFOUNDED comments on my blog!!! thank you.

anyway, i dont want it to seem like i'm just here to yell at you. so heres some interesting stuff thats happened in the last couple weeks since spring break.

the UNC basketball season ended with a heartbreaking loss in the 2nd round of the NCAA tourney. well that sucked, but the drunken partying afterwards made up for it, at least in part. as usual, TEP did, at least so i thought in my enebriated state, a wonderful job throwin a very large party. not a lotta space in there-way too many people-but somehow (and i still dont know how this happened) i wound up in the VIP room doing body shots (a couple of you might know what i'm talkin about wink wink) (haha).

the following weekend brought MORE crazy partying. that's right, folks, my grandma turned 70 last friday and i went home for the party with the family, which, needless to say, was OFF THE CHAINS!

also last friday, while enjoying a pleasant lunch on the quad with a couple friends, I (and about 5,000,000 other people) got a glimps of a dude streaking, yes streaking, as in stark naked, nearly the entire length of the quad by way of the main sidewalk. what became of him, i do not know, nor do i know WHERE THE HELL YOU GO IF YOU'RE A NAKED DUDE AT 1 IN THE AFTERNOON ON A SUNNY DAY!?!

well that's all i got today, i'm sure i could write/think of more but i got a hell of a workload this week (which has been the unfortunate trend, recently, if yall havent noticed) and i gotta get crackin.

bon voyage, my nizzles.

and LEAVE A DADGUMMED COMMENT!!!!!!!!!
[the word 'dadgummed' courtesy of coach roy williams]

PS
COMING SOON: list of funny insults from the insult wall next to the pit is definitely on order. also, discussion of all the wierdos that go to this school...especially the nerds who "run" to class with their bookbags on every morning. a list of quotes is on order as well, although i may need to do some more research.

costa pics

2004-03-23T01:22:00.000-05:00

a few costa rica pics now up, check the links to the left. pictures are of a bunch of us and our friends. pics taken by cheese, posted by julian. brandon, prescott, and john were all wilmington kids we met and surfed with one or two mornings (front couple of pages). marcel is one of my friends who lives down there (he rips!). nick, whitney, "me" (referring to julian) and cheese (aka queso) are kids from unc who i went with. paul, paulll, or P refers to myself (mostly on 3rd and 4th pages)...in case you were wondering. besides that, i think there are one or two pictures of unknown local surfers we were in the water with one morning. there's more to come, keep checkin back. there's also a video out but to my knowledge it's off the web, lemme know if you wanna see it i have it on my comp and its a hefty 200+ MB file. enjoy
paul

las vacaciones de la primavera

2004-03-13T20:34:00.000-05:00

let's just say wow. i don't even know where to begin. even though it ended on a kind of a bad note (partially just because it was ending, mostly because it ended early; more on this later) i would have to say that this was the best spring break ever. granted, my last 12 or 13 spring breaks have consisted of either going to the beach with the family (about 11 or 12 times) or going to disneyworld. with the family. did i mention that that was last year?

needless to say, last week's SURF TRIP TO COSTA RICA ranks 1st all time in paul's list of spring break adventures. probably sitting pretty in the top 3 trips of all time, as well. i know i'm probably gonna leave a bunch of shit out, so much went down. i'll try to start from the beginning.

wait timeout
[funniest occurance of the last 5 minutes:
my little brother has been playing video games all morning and he just finished an xbox football game and sprinted to the bathroom. i believe you can pause those things, buddy.]

ok, back to costa rica. so we left the thursday before break right after nick (another kid who came on the trip) and i got outta our huge pain-in-the-ass music exam because we flew out of miami (for $240 instead of like $600 out of RDU) and had to drive down there. before getting on I-95, however, we had to make a stop at sweetwater surf shop in wrightsville to pick up the hard travel cases for our 6 boards. this was a huge pain in the ass, but we got it done and were on the road by that evening. 13 hours later found us a few miles north of miami, where bryan, the driver of the suburban, decided to stop and catch some sleep before getting to the airport. so he pulled over and was like im just gonna stop in this hotel parking lot. except it wasnt a hotel parking lot. it wasn't even a motel parking lot. it was a GHETTO parking lot (note that by "ghetto" i'm not just saying crappy, i mean ghetto as in housing projects--"the hood," if you will). so we're like what the hell, no way dude and he left for a more $46000-suburban-with-6-surfboards-on-top-friendly stopping point after a few moments of unsuccessfully trying to explain to us how he figured we weren't going to get robbed and/or killed by stopping and sleeping there. anyway, we made it to miami int'l in one piece, fortunately. then, we got on the plane and flew to costa rica, and that's where the fun began.

damn this is gonna be a long post. and i'm not making it any better by sticking in these stupid 2-line interruptions.

alright, lemme start by saying that costa rica is so far the most beautiful place i've ever been. sitting out in the lineup, looking towards shore, you see palm-lined black sand beaches backed by mountains and rainforest. the water during this time of year (the dry season) is crystal clear and blue-green. the abundance of wildlife is stunning; all kinds of birds, flying fish jumping all around you, some people saw a sea turtle one night on the beach, a group of dolphins was out playing in the waves a few yards away from me one day, and the hotel was literally crawling with iguanas and little geckos (outside, of course).

the surf was good all week long--at least chest to head high every day, with a couple days getting to be one or two feet overhead. it never got huge, but for that particular area, summer and fall are the most swell-active times of year, with winter and spring being kind of the off season. it was still cosistent, though, and if it had gotten a whole lot bigger my boards would have been undersized. i didn't even drink or party that much...hardly at all really considering the availability and cheapness of alcohol down there. i'd just get up every morning at like 6:30 and go start surfing and surf for like 5 hours a day. the cool thing about this trip, at least in comparison to my last trip, was the aggressiveness with which i surfed. see, the waves in costa rica are not like anything you'd ever see in nc, even when it's small. they travel thousands of miles over the deep water of the pacific ocean, and then hit the coast with an impact that's nothing short of explosive. last time i was in costa, i was a lot more timid; i was being too careful, maybe i was thinking too much and psyching myself out. the waves were maybe a little heavier, but it was the end of summer and i had been doing a lot of surfing, so i should have been ready. this time, however, i hadn't really surfed since november and was expecting to be cold. for some reason, and i haven't really figured it out yet, i surprised myself by going for the biggest waves i could get my hands on, surfing with a lot more confidence, and not really being fazed when i took a hard wipeout. like i said, i don't really know why i surfed so much better...it could be the difference in boards i rode, or the fact that i was getting used to the power in the waves down there, or it could have been my way of unloading the built-up stress from the last couple of weeks. anyway, it shows in the pictures that "cheese" (the photog, who did a phenominal job) took.

i also got to hang out with a few of my friends from my last trip: marcel, harry, and alejandro. these guys all work at the hotel we stayed at last summer, they're all really good surfers; and they're like the most laid back, mellow people i've ever met. marcel drove me and julian to a spot a few miles up the beach at the mouth of El Rio Tulin. marcel told me AFTER the session that one of the fishermen there told him of a big croc he saw earlier that morning. thanks bro.

since i was the only one who had ever been to costa rica and speak some spanish, i unintentially wound up as more or less the leader of the group. it was the same area as i stayed in last summer, so i know it pretty well and was able to pick which restaurants and surf spots to go to pretty well. the food in costa rica was awesome as well as incredibly cheap. example: the last night we were there, i had 2 big steak burritos and 2 big smoothies for like 2000 colones including tip, which is a little less than 5 bucks. oh yea and it was fuckin good too.

the only downside to the whole trip was that we left a day earlier than we'd planned. see, most of the group was schedule to fly out on the 12th, while myself, nick, and bryan were supposed to fly out the 13th, giving me an extra day to surf with my friends before leaving. unfortunately, i was the only one in the group i was travelling with who really wanted to surf an extra day (even though i thought that was why we travelled 2500 miles in the first place) so i lost the vote when they decided to change flights. from the time i found out about that little plan, which had come to my attention a day before the flight left, to about halfway up I-95 from miami, i was ready to kill someone. especially since i noticed the swell picking up the morning we left.

speaking of leaving, most of the people in the group didn't wanna leave, and i was definitely one of them. it takes a trip to a country like costa rica to put things in perspective and make you realize that while the US is the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, we really don't have it all that well. here in the states everything's such a rat race, everyone's so focused on making money and buying shit, getting stressed out, and planning for the future instead of living their lives. in costa rica, everyone may not have an expensive car, they may not have a lot of money left over to waste, but i think for the most part everyone's just as happy, if not happier. it's just simpler...it's "pura vida" as they all say down there (seriously it's like a national expression). my friend marcel immigrated from venezuela, which is a political and social hellhole right now, with practically nothing. now he works and lives at a hotel, surfs every day, and knows seriously everyone in the hermosa-jaco area i think. he's not rich in the material sense, but in my opinion he lives pretty near an ideal life, and i don't think he would disagree.

anyway, i think i'll be spending more and more time in costa rica in the future. sorry about the long post, and i hope ya'll had as good of a spring break as me and are able to get through the rest of the semester with minimal worries.
peaceout.

Recent Occurances

2004-03-01T20:44:00.003-05:00

well it's been a week or so since my last post, which i think is a good thing because a.) i haven't been wastin all my time not doin work, and b.) i think people will read more of my posts if they are spread out rather than every day. anyway, a few interesting things have gone down since my last post, and as i recall i left some good stuff out of the last one cuz it was getting too long and i wanted to get some shit done.

anyway, the last two weekends have both been kinda interesting...good stuff for the most part...but interesting:

so friday nite before last as i recall there was nothing going on due in part to the big dance marathon, which was an interesting spectacle...kinda glad i wasn't in it though...maybe next year. that reminds me of a quote from my good friend orr, justfitying to dance marathon enthusiast melissa jarell why he wasn't doing it: as i recall it went something like "why would i do dance marathon, i don't have cancer." well played, my friend, well played.

so anyway, i participated in my first night of beer pong over in my boy's suite in craige. first two games, 0-2...i hate to say it but i was beginning to doubt myself. ahh, but i then got the hang of it, going 3-0 in my next 3 bouts before losing a close one, my last of the night, due to a sudden sate of badly hindered motor skills (for some reason). props to my partner for the night, sarah from craige, we made an awesome team but you can't win em all...especially when you are getting progressively drunker as the night goes on. i would also like to give a shoutout to kate, who kept me out of trouble for the most part after the alcohol really set in.

the following day was somewhat of a blur...i was experiencing what i like to call day-after-night-of heavy-drinking-and-still-not quite-sober-syndrome...not really hungover but still not feelin too on the ball, so to speak. that night, however, i attended another party at chapel ridge apartments, a SORORITY party...got TOTALLY hammered again and hooked up with like 14 fine-ass sorortity girls. aaaaaactually...i was DD...and i doubt, in all seriousness, that there were 14 decent looking girls in this whole sorority, let alone this one party. i mean maybe it was just the party, or maybe it had to do with my general mood that night, who knows. not to say that there weren't some, as orr well knows (thank me later buddy), but i'll just say that in general it was a disappointment. i mean, i don't wanna come off as an asshole or anything, but chicks complain and talk shit about dudes too, like "there are no hot guys at this party [or at this school, or in this frat, or room, etc.]." you've all heard it; mikee thai can back me on this one.

it was earlier this same day that a few people standing outside the light-side of morrison witnessed a rather humorous spectacle. prelude: my roomie, mike, had sprained his left ankle playing basketball a couple weeks earlier. friday, dumbass sprained THE OTHER ANKLE playing basketball, only this time much worse. saturday, it was black and blue on both sides...looked absolutely dithgustin'. needless to say, he can't walk at all. so he calls student health to ask if i can go get him crutches, and they're like no you have to come down here yourself. but he can't walk, and student health is way too far to crawl. we have a dilemma. so what do we do? well, being the resourceful man i am, i formulated a plan. kinda. i picked his ass up, carried him downstairs, plopped him down on the lawn in front of morrison. i then went inside morrison and emerged, triumphantly, with a wheelbarrow (i was lookin for a dolly or wheelchair but that was the next best thing). so i wheelbarrowed mike's ass over to, and inside, student health. hey, they be tightasses with their crutches, i get creative. so anyway, he's lucky it wasn't broken, according to the doctor. since then, he's slept about 16-20 hours each day...it's all he does, as many of you who have visited my room well know. that's right thai, i'm callin you out again!

this past weekend was no less interesting. friday night and saturday, went to the beach with a few folks from the surf club...to surf. water temp: 46 degrees F...air temp: not much warmer, maybe 50-55? on top of that my wetsuit is about 1-2 mm thinner than you'd want it to be for those kinds of temps...resulting in the COLDEST SESSION EVER. but the waves were good and julian's dad boated us over to masonboro island, which is this really cool, undeveloped island next to wrightsville beach. not that i was able to focus on surfing when all i could think about was how gosh durn cold i was. oh yea, and paddling back to the boat (anchored about 50 yards outside the lineup) i saw something move in the water...just like bubbles and a little splash, i couldn't tell what it was. now, masonboro's got a reputation for being kind of a shark hangout, so i quickly sat up on my board and started lookin around. i looked over at the guys on the boat (i was the last one to head in) and they're standing up looking and pointing at something and yelling at me. at this point, i was kinda nervous and took my hood off to hear them. "Shark, shark!" they say. right at the moment at which i was about to crap myself, i finally saw the damn thing and it was a dolphin, just as i had hoped, and i paddled back to the boat. whitney, nick, cheese...asswipes, all of you. you guys are lucky i was too cold to kick yer asses cuz i WOULD have. oh yea. just try that little prank again, just try it, i dare you...better hope yall don't get in trouble next week in costa rica. ahh, good times...haha.

well, that ended up a little longer than i expected, but i probly won't be posting again till i get back (hopefully in one piece) from costa rica at the end of spring break. expect another long one. don't forget to post a comment. later.

so far...

2004-02-23T23:22:00.001-05:00

well, since the semester is half over, i guess i should give a little run-through on all the happenings so far this semester. for the sake of an interesting story, the semester starts with winter break. before beginning, however, I would like to thank my boy james mundia, my suitemate orr s..., and my good friend gaya something , and anyone else who might have given me the idea to start up one of these here online journal things by putting their own on their profile.

anyway, winter break...
drove, with the ski club, in a 15-passenger van, a 4-runner, and a uhaul, up to quebec city, canada to ski/board mont sainte-anne. 21 hrs gettin' there (including a 3 hour stop in montreal). first night, we went to a bar for a few minutes, met a couple drunk girls from ontario, the girls from our group left, and then we left and went to bed. we kept running into the girls throughout the week, some of us more than others (if you were there then you know what i mean). the rest of the nights are kind of a blur, lots of drinking and partying, new years at this huge club being the apex of the experience, spent as little money as possible (which still wound up being a lot), and got some damn good skiing, along with some not so good skiing in. overall, great trip. that is, untl the 24-hour ride back, thanks to a 4-hour ordeal with customs (our RENTED van was still listed as STOLEN by the durham police dept) combined with a shitload of snow in canada.

the next weekend i hear there were some grand throwdowns at some of the cooler frat houses (TEP, i believe), but i missed it due to another ski trip to sugar mtn in nc for a race. 6 people consumed 50 beers in one night. now you're probably beginning to understand the phrase "our drinking team has a skiing problem" (jenn &/or katie?).

not much happened in chapel thrill over the next few weekends, i recall embarrassing myself at a club, maybe a weak party here or there.

fortunately, this string of boring weekends was broken up by a nice little ice/snow storm. 2-3 inches of snow topped by a layer of sleet and ice made for some EPIC sledding conditions. being the poor college students we are, however, we had to improvise somewhat to solve the problem of having no sleds. food trays from chase dining hall, cardboard signs, metal picnic tables, and chairs from residence hall lounges sufficed, and good times were had by all. at 1AM, i found myself out on the hill on skipper bowls drive with about 2000 other residents of the dirty south (basketball team included, more on this in a few moments), zooming down the hill like human bowling balls through the crowd on the previously mentioned sledding devices. among the more enthusiastic members of the crowd, with the exception of the inebriated, was raymond felton, star point guard of the hoops team, who repeatedly sledded through the crowd and ran up the hill. my daring roommate, mike, and i challenged ray to a race, 2 actually, and lets just say it was intense. i could write 10 pages on this, but i'll just leave it at that.

some weekend in early february, the ski team returned to action with the season's grand finale at snowshoe, wv. with lodging paid for, discount lift tickets, and a trip to the grocery store before getting there, this trip was dirt cheap (by skiing standards). nearly a foot of new snow made for some pretty solid conditions, and i skiied and raced way better than i really ever have, due to the fact that this was the first season i've been able to ski for more than a few days.

valentine's day weekend saw me attend not one, but TWO sorority cocktails. both were a blast, although my blazer was apparently picked up by some drunken frat boy, and has yet to be returned (although it has been located, so thats good).

the following week was more or less of a downer, with the exception of the OAR concert midweek, which, to say the least, was off the chains. typical college shit--girls, friends, classes--was just gettin' to me, as it inevitably does to everyone, i guess.

while we're on the subject of classes, though...ok...so last semester i cruised, did awesome in most of my classes, had fun outside of school...good stuff. this semester=different story. all of a sudden, everyone decides to go home on weekends, frats start getting exclusive with their parties, and nothing in the way of parties really has really gone down barring the first weekend (or so i hear). oh yea and my classes blow...they're all hard and boring and stuff...definitely not the easy, interesting, engaging stuff i had last semester. i guess i know what not to study now--everything i've taken this semester.

on a brighter note, the surf club's finally up and running. meetings 7:30pm wednesday nights in woollen 302. we got a spring break to costa rica comin' up...more on this later because that would take up another 50 lines. maybe i should just wait till i get back to ramble on about that.

anyway, im out now. i hope ya'll have enjoyed my first real post on this thing, and i've been successful in giving you another way to put off your work for 10 more minutes. i'm gonna get a few more links and shit up on this...it's still not done yet. leave a comment now that i've figured out how to get that up and running.
later,
paul

this thing workin right yet?

2004-02-23T00:36:00.000-05:00

so looks like i've finally been able to get me one of these online journals everyone has. i got plenty of good stories and "ramblings" comin up on this thing soon, but as of right now it's half after midnite and i gotta get some more reading done before goin to bed. if anyone reads this leave a post or somethin lettin me know. im out.