De-mystification, Haircut Economics, and Monopoly

It's 2:30 in the morning and the coffee still hasn't worn off...

Thursday
Chem lecture in the morning...
ConWest in the afternoon...
Haircut in between...
First I went to the place right next to my dorm...some fashion/trendy/hair salon place, basically a place that I'd never normally go to...
I was drawn in by the sign on the outside that said "men's haircuts, students get a discount"...
I walked out of the place 15 seconds later...pfft...25 dollars for a haircut...I don't care how great of a haircut it is...I'm never paying that much for a haircut...
Asked around and found a barber shop on Astor Place...
Marco the barber, he's a good man...

Mystery concert...the mystery band(s) were The Fiery Furnaces and The Shins...
Went to the concert with Eddie...
We got to Coles about a half hour early and still there was a line halfway down the block...
Die-hard Shins fans...
Waiting in line, then it started to rain....hard...
Everyone soaked, they let us in a little early...
No pictures...my camera battery died... :(
The Furnaces were pretty good...they reminded me of the White Stripes meets Rush...
What amazes me is that they played a 45-minute set, straight through, no breaks, no time for applause until the end...
They played a medley, songs effortlessly blending past each other...beginning and ending with the same song...The Shins were awesome...they played some acoustic songs and a never-before-heard new song...

Friday
Chem recitation was alright...
The TA was cool, he let us leave early after the quiz...yeah, first quiz of the year...it was on the syllabus, an open-syllabus quiz...

After that I took a walk up to Union Square...
Just contemplating...

Played Monopoly with the roommates...
Yeah, good game...it's one of those games that can go on for days...
We play a "bootleg" version...where if you land on "free parking" you get all the money placed in the middle of the board...

2 papers and lots of reading to do...

One more thing...Dave Solomon must be left alone...it's funny as hell to mess around with him, just don't take things too far...lmao

"Karma police, arrest this girl
her Hitler hairdo, is making me feel ill..."
Radiohead, "Karma Police"

First day of classes (take 2)...

Today I did things right...but often times it seems like some unknown divine force is trying to hinder me from reaching my goals...

A rainy, wet, Wednesday morning...

I woke up early and got ready for the 9:30 biology lecture...
I couldn't find my fucking ID...I looked for it for a half hour...
The NYU ID is probably the most valuable thing...it's my library card, my meal card, and it gives me access to all the buildings...
In the process of looking for it, I crush my little toe on my left foot...the damn NYU chairs rock back and forth...serving no purpose whatsoever...besides helping poor students fall backwards and crush their toes...
At this point I was running late and decide to fuck it all and go straight to class...
I tell the guard my story and offer to leave my driver's license as collateral...
The security guard was extremely cool about it and told me not to worry about it and let me through...

I was 3 minutes early and the lecture hall is completely filled up...there are people sitting in the aisles...
There are 300-400 people in my bio class, including Roy my RA...
The professor reminded me of Ben Stein from Ferris Bueller's Day Off...

Rumors have it that the band playing at the Mystery Concert is Coldplay... But the RA says it highly unlikely.... It is probably going to be indie-rockers, The Shins... But I've heard that it might be 2 bands... I'll only know for sure tomorrow...

I had "Writing the Essay" at Bobst library...
The "classroom" was a closet...a claustrophobe's nightmare...
Someone mentioned how the library is very depressing, and they made us read this morbid poem about "children's blood in the streets"...
"No wonder people are throwing themselves off buildings..."
The instructor is pretty cool, she's all professional and stuff...she kinda reminded me of my 7th grade English teacher in some way....
I have to write 1 page, describing a piece of art...
I think I'll do the cover of "Abbey Road" since I'm staring right at it at the moment...

Conversations of the West: Antiquity in the Renaissance...
The professor seems kinda cool...
But the workload is scary....
Every text we read, we have to write a response paper...
Tons of reading, writing...
How will I survive?

Reading the Hebrew bible...reading Genesis...
Up to the part where Noah gets drunk, naked, and enslaves his grandson...

Dorm firedrill was horrible...
Especially sucked cause I was in the bathroom at the time...
The fire alarm are fucking loud...loud enough to wake the dead...several times...
Exactly like the one from high school, crickets from outer space...
Except...it isn't CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP....it's one continuous, long, fucking CHIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPP!!!!
Everyone waiting in the streets for 20 minutes...
Mad rush back into the building...some people forget their ID and couldn't come back in...that sucks...
When there's a real firedrill no one's gonna be like "wait, I gotta get my ID and keys..."
SHHH! This is a firedrill...shhhhh....be quiet....shhhhh....
Firedrills are pointless because they do not truly simulate an actual fire emergency....

"You're air that, air that I can breathe
Cause you're my golden opportunity ..."
~Coldplay, "Moses"

A very unproductive day...

Monday...
I was in a Bottle Knocker tournament...(Bottle Knocker sounds kinda dirty, doesn't it?)
Some good games...Ryan beat the Godfather (RJ, the inventor of the game)...21-20
I was up against Matt and the game when into freakin' overtime with him winning by one point...
Kevin was the champ...

At the floor meeting we were talking about condoms, dental dams, and oral sex...
And out of nowhere one of the girls says: "I hope you don't mind, I'm kinda hungry, could I leave and get some dinner?"
The entire floor starts cracking up...guess she wasn't paying attention to the topic...

Tuesday...
My quest for knowledge and truth begins today...
Right off the bat, I miss my first class of the year...a chem lecture...
On the schedule it said "TR", which I interpreted as Thursday...
Apparently T stands for Tuesday and R stands for Thursday...
R for Thursday...who the hell came up with that?
Goddamn, I'm so mad at myself...
Thankfully, he didn't take attendance...
But I still need to get my hands on the syllabus...

*update*
I got the syllabus from Halpin himself...
He seemed like a cool guy...
The timing was amazing...
I caught him just as he was coming out of his office and locking the door behind him...
If I left the dorm 10 seconds later I would've missed him...

Had lunch at Kimmel, then went to find out where this mysterious 3-5W was on my schedule...
"3 dash 5 double-U" I thought to myself...
The building was at Washington Place, down by Broadway...
Six floors...1 elevator...lots of "traffic"...

Chilled out at the park for a half hour...
Washington Square Park is amazing, there are 10 million things going on at the same time...
I found out something very disturbing...
Washington Square Park used to be a poor man's burial ground...
There are more than 15,000 people buried beneath the grassy lawns...
It was also a place where they would hang people....public execution and shit...
People swung from trees during the American Revolution, trees that are still around today...
But today it's a place where people frolic and play...

I show up extra early to chem class, hoping to redeem myself...
Only to find out that Chem lab was cancelled...
It was a wasteful day, very unproductive overall....

My roommates are very entertained by my guitar...

"Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like a ringing a bell..."
~Chuck Berry, "Johnny B. Goode"

Rest in peace...

Two NYU students have died so far...

Spenser Kimbrough, 19, of Staten Island
-died mysteriously after telling his roommate that he felt ill...

Joanne Leavy, 23
-commited suicide, jumped off the top of a Tisch building
-she was last seen running out of her apartment crying, "Don't tell my father, don't tell my father!"

I never knew you two, but rest in peace...

I signed up for Washington Square News, only to get messages in my inbox saying that NYU students are dying...
Classes haven't even started yet...
How depressing... :(

"He's bloated and frozen
Still there's no point in letting it go to waste..."
Radiohead, "Knives Out"

After the party: White [Castle] Trash 

After the party: empty bottles 

Nunes taking a picture of me taking a picture of him taking a picture of me taking... 

JoMo kicking Edwin's ass at SeeLow

Nunes and his big win...

Party at Edwin's, Hallway Racing, and Bottle Knockers

Saturday morning...
Woke up at 8am to the telephone ringing a thousand times...
My uncle was downstairs and brought the fridge and printer...

Nunes left shortly after...
Lunch at U Hall...
The rest of the roommates went kayaking on the Hudson River...
I left for my Grandpa's house in Astoria...
Made an unintentional visit to Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall...

When I got there, I only set foot on the sidewalk and Uncle Ted pops out of the door and yells "JULIAN!"
They attacked me with food...pizza hit the spot...
Went upstairs and just talked to my cousin Alice for a while...catch up...
Her computer was messed up, helped her reformat...

Got back to East Meadow around 8pm...
My dogs were insane when they saw me...
Hung out with JoMo, Nunes, Mike, Raul, Edwin, Dan, Nicole, Nicole's friends Rachel and Heather and some of Edwin's buddies...
60-80 dollars worth of booze...
Just like last time, minus the vomit and cops........and bagels....
Didn't drink this time around...but Nunes has this picture of me holding like 10 empty bottles of Smirnoff Ice...
Asshole and Ring of Fire, Dan was President this time around...
Edwin's computer had an STD...I felt like I was going around to people's houses, trying to fix their computers...
Blood, garlic, and cabbage launchers....Fear Factor rip-off....
Got back home around 3 or 4 in the morning...
Good time with friends...

Sunday...
I came back home just to pick up my books and guitar...but ended up bringing back a shitload of stuff...including a microwave :)
Sleeping in my room felt weird, I don't know, I didn't like it...
Back at NYU around 6pm...
Played Texas Hold'em with Ryan, Kenny, and Eddie...
Beginner's luck once again...but then I lost it all...
I realize now that poker isn't all luck...

Hallway racing...we invented a game (we were extremely bored)..
One guy starts at the end of the hall by the elevators...another guy holds the door to the dorm open, when the runner is ready the door guy says "GO" and let's go of the door...
It's a race to the door before it shuts...if you don't make it, you get locked out...
Varying levels of difficulty, human hurdles, two person race...
One of the RAs got into this...
The record for down and back is 12 seconds...

Bottle Knockers with the people down the hall...
Bottles are set up and you have to hit them off the shelves...carnival style...must be entirely knocked off...
3 shots, 3 rounds...
Cupping and booking are extremely hard to do...
Requires a lot of skill...

......yeah, I definitely have to go out somewhere, ANYWHERE, today....

"You think it's easy, but you're wrong
I am not one half of the problem..."
~Pavement, "Zurich is Stained"