Summer Breeze

This weekend was pretty fun. And in what I believe to be stereotypical self-important blogger fashion, I'm going to recount it for what little audience, if any, I may have.

The weekend for me began in my mind at least Friday afternoon, when I was notified that in spite of the change of Sushi destination, Annie still wanted to go do this double date thing with Kim and Jeremy. I have no idea how to spell Jeremy so I hope that's right. Anyhow, I was told that we'd be trying to leave maybe around seven, maybe earlier. I had wanted to watch the Animation Show at Doc and so my only real protest was that I have enough time to do that as well.

I got out of work at 5, and thinking I still had some time headed over to Crerar to pick up my Physics textbook to get an early start on the homework. As it happens, I never actually made use of them until the following morning, because I was told that we might try and go earlier since we didn't really have any reason to delay and everybody was hungry enough, or something. So I walked home, changed clothes and we headed out to the bus.

Now, since this was a Friday, I hadn't actually eaten anything the whole day since breakfast, for which I had two pieces of apple pie, and that's it. Maybe a bit of water through the day but nothing more. So when we headed out I was pretty cranky, and apparently it showed, a lot, but Annie reassured Kim and Jeremy that I was just cranky and not actually upset about being dragged out or something like that.

We got to Fullerton, which is really far away, and started looking for Clark street, which proved to be a bit more difficult than I think was really necessary, but I'm as much to blame as anybody for not bothering to have looked at a map first. We wandered around a bit, asked a bunch of strangers to point us in the right direction, and eventually found our way there. We noted a few eating establishments as we searched for Hey Sushi! which I, at least, considered returning to on the way back to the train later.

Eventually we found the place, and walked in to be greeted with what was kind of a outrageous atmosphere. I thought the decor to be pretty crappy, and the music annoying at best, but then, I have some pretty silly notions about how I expect a sushi place to look to begin with, so, who knows.

I'm no good at reviewing food or service or anything, so I'll simply say that while a bit pricey, because I am poor and nearly incomeless, I did think it very tasty. I ordered a tuna avocado roll, tonkatsu roll and california roll, and a house salad. The salad was kind all right, though the ginger dressing stuff was uncharacteristically salty. Still tasty to eat, but not nearly as tasty as other places I've had.

The "sunset" roll, which was smoked salmon and stuff, as well as the unagi roll that Annie had were both very tasty as well. And though kind of strange, I really liked the tonkatsu roll.

After we had all finished, we paid and headed out. K and J were both pretty full, having ordered a freaking boat of sushi, and Annie was as well, on account of having been eating apparently the whole day, well, snacking, rather.

I however, was actually still kind of hungry, because I hadn't eaten anything, so, as we were walking, I noted this austrian bakery and suggested we stop by. We did, and while I was perusing their variety of croissants, K and J decided to get some dessert. I'm not a fan of tiramisu but apparently it was very good, as was their fruit tart. I enjoyed the croissants and hot chocolate though.

Walking further, we stopped in this gelato/bubble tea joint and Annie picked up a cantaloupe/strawberry freeze with tapioca. I'm not the hugest fan of cantaloupe, but, nonetheless, it was good. Finally, due in part to me seeking to sate my stomach, and in part to the demands of some bladders, we made a stop in McDs and I had a double cheeseburger because it was on the dollar menu. It seemed kind of a shame to finish an evening of nice food with a grease sandwich but, it was at the very least enough to make me stop feeling hungry.

We got back on the train, and headed back towards Hyde Park. K and J got off downtown to go see star wars, and I hope that I too will be able to see it soon as well.

Upon getting back to hyde park, we rushed over to Doc, to come in a couple minutes late to the 11:00 showing of the animation show. I wasn't as impressed as I remember being last year, but there were a few really amusing ones. I particularly liked this one called "Ward 13" which has a really hilarious wheelchair chase scene.

While there, we ran into Cassie, James and Pete, and then had some brief conversation while walking back to our respective abodes. And that's about the end of Friday. I went to sleep pretty early because I had to return those damn physics books to the library by 10 AM.

Saturday was sort of the most interesting part of the weekend, on account of Summer Breeze. I woke up at around 8:30 and began preparing. When I say preparing, I mean filling my hydropack thingy up with ice, orange juice, tonic and vodka. It was rather quite tasty actually. I also brought some paper and a calculator so I could do my physics homework before the festivities really got underway around noon.

I arrived at the library at about 10:05, a bit late, but nobody seemed to mind, at which point I renewed the loan and did my physics homework. At about 11:30 I finished up, and headed over to the other library to deposit my homework and other unneeded stuff in a locker. I ran into Pete there, as he was working. He was the first person in my day to remark on the strange tube filled with liquid running from my back to my right shoulder.

After dropping off my stuff, I headed over to the "carnival" that was the Summer Breeze activities. At first I just sort of wandered around as they were still setting up. I sipped on my nice chilled beverage and saw what was being set up. I ran into a few people I know, most of which gave remarks on my backpack, ranging from telling me it was a very cool idea to that it was without compare in nerdiness. Among them was James who was running the roommate game, which I watched the beginning of, but ultimately was more interested in the pie eating contest being run by the culinary club.

Last year, I was a contestant, though this year, they pulled me in last minute as a volunteer to help serve. I was in charge of keeping three contestants plates constantly filled with pie. This is in my memory perhaps the peak of my weekend, though I'm not sure why.

The pie eating got underway and this one guy who I was serving was downing pie like a champ. I mean, he was fucking blazing through his first pie, and I was encouraging him as I shoveled more pie onto his plate. Around I think perhaps the 4 or 5 minute mark, he had basically consumed 1.5 pies. I think they were maybe 9" pies, to give an idea of the size. The first was blueberry, the second was apple. But about then, he just sort of stopped. I was like, uh oh, I think he's pushed himself a little too far. And then he gagged. Now, I think in retrospect I should have been a better person and encouraged him to stop, but, no. I just told him something about burping to feel less full and keep stuffing his face with pie.

Well, a minute later, maybe only 30 seconds, he goes for another few bites. But then he just sort of stops and is holding his hand in front of his mouth, looking kind of queasy. Then out of nowhere his face erupts with this liquefied pie goo, which was surprisingly not blue, given that he had just eaten a blueberry pie. I mean, it wasn't a lot of vomit, but it was coming out at high speed, and there was splashing onto the other two guys I was serving (the puker was in the middle).

Now for some reason, I found this hilariously amusing and could not stop laughing as I continued to serve pie. I suspect that this may have had more than nothing to do with having been drinking a bit beforehand.

Besides that though, I just sort of meandered around. I got a wax mold made of my hand, which was both really cold and really hot, both to the point of being mildly painful. I "jousted" with Dennis, wherein I successfully tackled him once and proceeded to be demolished due to poor strength and coordination. In the bungee run as well I was bested 3-0. Though, in a singular act of vindication, I managed to "win" not just one, but two, bottles of water (we were thirsty and I had decided maybe it'd be a good idea to have some water too) from the student care table. Dennis however was unable to muster up the throwing skill for even one. This is not actually important and entirely trivial but this is how my memory went.

After that, I think we headed over towards the climbing column thing set up in the Harper quad and climbed up that. After this, Dennis headed off (we'd been hanging around since I ran into him before the pie debacle) and Annie who had since joined us, and I got some food and wandered around some more. I got a Strawberry Lychee tapioca freeze and I think that was about when we decided to head off. This was around 3:00 or so. I headed to the library to grab my bag, she went to pick up one of the extra pies.

We headed back and I took a nap before the concert.

Oh, but before that, I did discover a way for me to get rid of this huge quantity of extra deodorant I've got, and in a charitable way to boot (that is, opposed to a dumpster).

Right, so, at around 5:30 we headed over to Reynolds to attend the Summer Breeze concert. The first act, Julie Roberts, was met with a less than enthusiastic and somewhat lacking crowd. I'm neither a big fan nor terribly familiar with country music, so, I spent a lot of time wandering around, talking with people I knew. During this time, Jess came and joined us and in a very very limited sense I caught up a little. Hardly at all though, which is a shame because I must admit, though somewhat late, I am curious about her time in Thailand.

Anyhow, after Roberts finished, a few more people started showing up, and as Ted Leo took to the stage, we stood from our muddy seats on the ground to stand in front of the stage. By this time, my neck had started to bother me (from having landed on it while being yanked backwards by the bungee run thing) but alas, too bad. I was also still chugging away at my 2.75 liters of considerably diluted (due to melting ice) beverage, which I think perhaps added to the experience.

Nas' performance was great, I think. I mean, I haven't really attended a rap performance before, so, what do I know, but, it was a lot of fun, in spite of this raving bitch behind me. She wouldn't shut the fuck up and was screaming "fuck you nas you fucking pussy" for hours. I also came to the conclusion that Ben later shared with me that rap concerts are more fun if you know the artist's songs beforehand. So while I knew a couple, I didn't really know that many and while it didn't detract from the experience directly, I feel like it would have been more fun if I knew more of them. Who knows though.

Anyhow, it was a lot of fun, and apparently Yana who runs special events at Doc also volunteers for MAB. This is only notable because I remembered that I never replied to this email she sent after the last Doc special event, because I still have yet to figure out what I'm doing over the Summer.

And I think that's about it for Saturday. I know I'm leaving out huge chunks of how things happened, but I feel that there are enough words here as it is, and any further verbosity is just going to be that much more of a pain to write and read.

Before going to sleep though, I realized I had made an error in telling my roommates about when my sister was coming, and it wasn't today, but tomorrow. (That is, not Sunday, but Monday.)

So this morning, I woke up and it was pretty early, and actually nothing of note really happened. I can't remember anything at the moment at least.

At about 2:00 we headed over to Mahjong. Mahjong was amusing. Talked to Mike (mickey preferred?) for a bit, which is actually kind of strange given the banter that has in some sense developed between us online. I'm not really sure what else I can remark about it... er I actually won a couple rounds, which was a first though. The cookies Teresa baked were pretty tasty as well.

I was entertained, well, not entertained, but I enjoyed being witness to the way some other people interact with each other, because it struck me as so different from the way most of the people I know interact with each other. I feel as if I have perhaps stagnated.

After mahjong, I came home, cooked up a bunch of bacon wrapped dates, which were delicious. I ate some vegetables Annie had cooked up in oyster sauce and planted myself in front of the TV to watch Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy like the hopeless TV-addicted boob I am. But apparently everything bad is good for you, so said that book some guy talked about in the Maroon. I don't need excuses though. It was the season finales of two shows I'd watched the whole seasons of. How could I miss it?

After that, I wrote a bunch of emails I'd been meaning to write, including giving directions to my sister who will be arriving tomorrow, as well as following up with these people in NYC who are interviewing me later this week, and hopefully if that goes well, I'll have something to do in NYC, which I've almost committed myself completely to by default at this point.

Ok, I think I've said about enough and I'm going to go to sleep now. It's going to be a busy week, what with my sister visiting, and many others as well.