A Weekend to Remember

This past weekend has no doubt been one of the best weekends up here at college. And when I say "up here" I am referencing my location to our "permanent address" of conservative Newport (which I have learned must be differentiated between our local address at each of our respective colleges) and not your local addresses which I do recognize to be north of me (even you Rachael! 1 degree!). So most of my post will thus be focused on Saturday and Sunday, and will exclude the rest of my week which you can assume was chock full of studying and homework for my midterms that did/currently/will forever haunt me.

But a couple of things before we start. One, I am, like Rachael, jealous of your induction into Pottermore Nicole. I truly want to see if I am actually a Slytherin at heart like we discussed before. Upon further reflection up here at college (again with the up's) I think I actually have a less coldhearted persona than previously thought. Or as my new friend Alana puts it, "Once Jason becomes president, the fraternity's going to all be candies and rainbows." She, like many, was perfectly fine with the idea that pledges who show up late for clean up on the day after a party should get the worst jobs, i.e. cleaning up the bathroom. I vented my frustration that everyone couldn't agree with my opinion that we should all just chip in to clean the bathroom because then it would get done faster and the grief would be spread so thin that it would be as if it didn't exist. Apparently this provoked the aforementioned statement, little to my amusement.

Back on the topic of Pottermore. This encounter described above made me question whether I was really as pesimistic about humanity as I thought I was. Thus, I am envious of your acceptance into Pottermore because I truly want to know which house I would be sorted into. I do realize of course that I know nothing about how Pottermore actually sorts you into houses. It could be done arbitrarily through random assortment, or rather through a quiz similar to the ones on facebook (though hopefully more in depth), or maybe even through magic. All I do know is that I'm envy of you Ms. Danser and the only respite my mind receives from this perpetual jealousy is by reminding myself that no silly man-made device could ever truly no what house you belong in compared to that vocal piece of head gear we know and love.

Two, (yes we are still listing things I want to address before the main attraction) I have the most amazing idea ever: science teacher banquet! No Prof. Winkler cannot attend, but who will attend is the harem of lesbian (ok not all lesbians) women composed of Jenny, Terri, Jackie, and Kimmy (yeah that last one NGO one ever uses! oh hahaha I'm so funny). My plan is that hopefully sometime during Winter Break when we all are back in Newport (please don't ruin this by saying you won't be there) we (along with some select others) will try and set up a lunch with those four amazing women. Just thinking about it gets me pretty aroused, so you better comment and tell me how you are also extremely aroused and want to partake in this. But yeah, that's my genius idea and although much is left to be fine tuned, I think it a pretty groovy (yes that adjective is purposeful and yes that is an adjective, I double checked) idea myself.

And finally (third for those of you not keeping count), I had my first midterm this past week, Wednesday to be specific. Chemistry 4A. Holy fucking shit it was hard. The high was a 22/24. The low was a 5/24. And the average was 15/24, around a 62%. I got around the average grade which was kinda depressing because as shown above, the average grade is pretty embarassing. I don't think the professor was that happy, but his beautiful, colorful handwriting was still on the blackboard at the next lecture so I wasn't phased. I should really have a picture to show you guys but I don't. So I promise next week I will have a picture and you can all be jealous. Or afraid, I think we are doing molecular ion orbital theory. Yeah. Try drawing what hydrogen gas looks like as a positive ion. So yeah right now I'm struggling with schoolwork, but having tons of fun with frat life. And that's all college is about right? Having fun and partying and not focusing on schoolwork at all right? NO ITS NOT. So yeah, get your head on straight Jason and start caring more about your work. I think its just because everyone here is soooo fucking smart (at least in ChemE, Cole tells me there are lots of dumb people, but I have yet to see them in ChemE, everyone is such a fucking genius.)

So that was a longer preface than I anticipated. And so without further ado, let the presentation begin:

Saturday:

Today I woke up to the lovely buzzing of my phone. Kevin had texted me asking if I wanted to get lunch. Because no one can turn down the Bam I proceeded to meet him at Asian Ghetto to get some delicious Asian food. Asian Ghetto is an alley in Berkeley that houses some of the most delicious (and MSG ridden) Asian food (also a Mexican, Italian (which is basically like $6 pasta that's better, yesC better, quality than Pasta Thursday's and in a variety of types. Oh and the calzones are to die for), and donut shop oddly enoug

h). So Kevin and I ate our pad thai (sooooooo good if I didn't stress enough that the food here is amazing) and talked about our plans for the night and such, normal man-date schtuff. Then, Kevin had the genius idea to get crepes. Oh my Beelzebub was this a good idea. We went to Crepe's A Go Go (pictured right) ,

which is on Telegraph (the street where all the homeless folks reside). IT WAS SOOOO GOOOD. Caps do not do justice how good these crepes were. Kevin got a chocolate one and for myself a strawberry-lemon-sugar one (pictured left). We decided to sit down in front of one of the libraries to feast upon our crepes. And feast we did.











Now Kevin told me that you guys wouldn't care to see pictures of Berkeley since most of you have already visited, but I wanted to be hip and cool like you and show you pictures of my school, so here it goes. This is a picture of Memorial Glade (right), the field in front of the library where people play frisbee a lot.





This is the vantage point we had while feasting on crepes, and the main thing I want to point out with this photo is the weather. Thursday and Friday were the hottest days since arriving at Berkeley, (high 90's I think) so the weather on Saturday (as you can see quite overcast)was greatly appreciated. There really was nothing more calming than sitting in a beautiful location on a cool day with little to no noise... eating crepes (always back to the crepes, they were just sooo good). I guess it's something you just have to be there for.



So moving on, then Kevin and I walked around campus pretending we were tourists so I could get shots for the blog. This picture is of the campanile (left), which looks amazing on foggy nights (don't have a picture now but I'll try and get one some night). The next four pictures are of the same building, where the smallest bear on campus is located.

I assume you don't need another arrow.

Finally, the last stop on our tour was Wheeler Hall, where my Astronomy class is held. It's an enormous building, perhaps the largest on campus, I'm not sure but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

So now onto my night! Basically, being in a fraternity here means your entire weekend belongs to the fraternity. So, knowing that it was no surprise that I spent my entire night at the fraternity. Typically on a given weekend, we have what is called an "exchange" with another sorority. The whole idea behind traditional Greek Life (I say traditional because I am excluding professional and service fraternities) is to develop social relationships with many of your peers. That, today, generally means having parties involving alcohol because that seems to be the U.S.'s choice legal drug. So by that logic, my fraternity (Phi Kappa Psi) hosted a party (exchange if you will) with Alpha Chi Omega (or A-Chi-O for short).

To be as correct as possible, I will say that "it was fun" and "I had a good time." I would go into more detail but I doubt many of you want to hear it, or be apologized to in Derek's case. It was definitely a lot of fun, and I got to meet many new girls, along with seeing one of my already established friends that I didn't even know was in A-Chi-O. She tried telling me that she had already told me she was in that sorority but I knew she was lying. Women always lie.

Exchanges generally start at 10ish and then around midnight we start letting in other people and it becomes an open party. Perhaps this party was so much fun because I knew so many of the people there. I knew the girl from A-Chi-O, I was able to let my two Texan friends (one of them being my best non-cdm guy friend I've made up here), I was able to let another group of people I knew in, and last but not least I was able to see Micha, Turney, Gaby, and visiting them, Nica(Sabouni. Yeah remember that time Nicole and I beat you (Derek) and Nica at Taboo. Because I do. Sorry for all who don't get this, but I just get every chance to put myself on top of Derek...figuratively and literally I guess), Vicky (Juhasz. I know her from bio so I don't think anyone else would know her), and Margaret (Valdes! She was visiting Gaby from USF!).

Also, a really cool thing happened at the exchange/party. I was talking to Gaby when all of a sudden one of my pledge brothers (who I wasn't closest with at the time but definitely am now) came up to me and introduced his boyfriend to me. Yes! Boyfriend! I apparently looked startled, Favio (I realize its now going to get confusing since there are two he's, so introductions are in order. Favio is my pledge brother, and his boyfriend which I was introduced to on Saturday is named Jimmy) told me later. I definitely was when he told me, I had no idea that he was gay and it was shock for sure. Some insist I should have seen it coming by his obsession with Lady Gaga, evident by his "Born this way" tattoo on his chest, but I say "No!" This just shows how I am not a judgmental person and further increases my reason of reconsidering Slytherin.

And so the party ended.  It was a fun night as I've said about twenty time before, and now we move on to Sunday.

Sunday:

Sunday's always consist of two things. One, clean up from the party the night before, and two, pledge education. So all the pledges assembled at the house (did I mention we have a house for the fraternity? I think that was implied, hopefully you all got that being the smart people you are) at 12pm to clean up from the night before. Clean up went quicker than usual, probably because we had previously done it at 10am which was too early to have fully recovered from the night before and 12pm was jusssst right (goldilocks anyone?). After cleanup, we had about an hour before pledge ed at 2pm. Favio asked if I wanted to get food, and because I didn't eat breakfast or lunch I was more than down.

We first had to go back to Favio's dorm to get his matches (a way of keeping track of how well each pledge is doing. Having to burn matches is a bad thing, and once you're out of all forty you get kicked out) for pledge ed. This walk from the frat house to his dorm was probably one of my most rewarding experiences and I came out of it with a new gay best friend (no sassiness unfortunately). I could immediately tell that Favio was an extremely open person. He began by talking all about his night with Jimmy (some TMI that I will omit here), and went on to tell me about his life story. Some people don't like listening to life stories, but I love that shit, so I eagerly listened as he told me about his life.

I won't tell you the full story here for confidentiality sake, but essentially he grew up in a fairly conservative area (don't think Newport, this place is where the youth are also conservative and the society in general is religious), and when he came out he had it rough. Like real rough. Those stories you hear about that make you cry, yeah that was his story. I told him about my life, and how I grew up in a conservative bubble yet my school was surprisingly liberal. I told him about Rent and its impact at our school. I think he liked hearing about that.

So after our walk to get food (I got an egg, bacon, and cheese bagel sandwich in case you were wondering) and deeply pleasing conversation, we attended pledge ed in which we sang songs and recited the creed of the fraternity. Pledge ed is generally boring, but a requirement so the brothers of the fraternity can keep track of how the pledges are doing. I didn't do much the rest of the night, as it was a Sunday night after all. This past weekend has basically been one of the most fun and rewarding weekends of my college career. I hope to have many more in the future and hope to develop a great friendship with Favio.

Stay Classy,

Jason