An Entire Week to Remember

So I have a lot to talk about in this blog, and thus I will be all about efficiency.  So without further ado:

Awwwwwww

And that is the cute picture of the week!

So there was a lot going on this week and I'll try to cover everything I remember, but there was just soooooo much so I'm probably missing something and for that YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO DEAL.  On Tuesday there was a shooting at Cal.  YEAH. A SHOOTING.  The story goes that someone brought a gun into a classroom (specifically a computer lab I think) at Haas (our business school) and when the police got there (which was relatively soon because someone saw the gun concealed when it entered the room)  he refused to put the gun down when they asked him to, so the police shot him.  I think he was hit four times, and then rushed to the hospital where he promptly died.

The chancellor later sent out an email mourning the loss of the student's life.  I personally couldn't care less.  Although insensitive, bitch was crazy.  If you bring a gun to a school and won't put it down the police have the right to assume you have the intent to harm those around you.  Although I hate the police (AHHHH HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT THEY DID IN DAVIS!?!?!?!?) and their abuse of power, I will have to side with them on this one.  Bitch was crazy, bitch gets shot.

Now, you might have thought, "Wow, that was a crazy Tuesday!" And you would be right, except that there's more!  I skipped class that day because I pleaded the "it's not safe card."  I think I really just didn't want to go math.  I mean, who does? (Rhetorical question, Derek)  The "more fun" part comes in when me, Darren, Joel, and Cole went to the Occupy Berkeley happenings on Sproul Plaza (our quad of sorts) and saw Robert Reich speak.  I don't know if you know who that is, but it's this little man who is considered one of the best cabinet members (Sec. of Labor under Clinton) of all time. He is a really good speaker.  That's about all I can convey since I don't remember much of what he talked about.  Lots of people showed up.  Here's a picture:

I think the estimate was at two or three thousand people. Yikes.

So now my Tuesday is over, and I will proceed with the rest of my week.  (Starting with Wednesday in case you were unaware of the order of the days.  I hear a certain lady with the initials RB can help you out there) On Wednesday not much happened except that I HAD THE BEST PIZZA I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE.  I met my Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, and his girlfriend for dinner in San Fran and we went to this pizza place called Little Star Pizza.  We got two pizzas.  Both were vegetarian because my cousin and his girlfriend are veggievors and THEY WERE SOOO GOOOD.  They were both deep-dish.  One was straight mixed veggie and the other one was like a spinach margherita pizza.  SOOOOO GOOOD.  Unfortunately I don't have pictures :(

Nothing really happened Thursday, but for the sake of having something happening every day I'll say that I had my last chem lab for the semester.  Yay!

On Friday I skipped all of my classes.  "WHAT!?!?!? YOU SKIPPED ALL OF YOUR CLASSES!?!?!? WHY?!?!?!?"  Because I'm in a Frat.  (You now all have to look up "Frat Life" on youtube and watch the video, it's hilariousssssss!)  But seriously, I skipped my classes because my fraternity hosted what is called Big Game Luncheon.  Big Game Luncheon (Big Game is the game between Stanford and Cal btw)  is where both Phi Psi's from Cal and Stanford go to John's Grill in the city and have a lunch with all of the alumni in the area and even some alumni from out of state.

The point of it is to establish a connection with the undergrads and the alumni.  The secondary point for all the undergrads is to get free booze because all of the alumni are more than willing to buy all of the drinks.  Sadly, this is where I inform you that my pledge of sobriety has come to an end.  I didn't get white boy wasted (or even brown boy wasted (yeah that's right I'm adding inside jokes in here now for you)) but I did have two beers that people bought for me.  I feel really bad about it and my apologizes go out to Favio for breaking our promise.

On to Saturday!  On Saturday I hung out with Favio most of the day to try and amend my bad standing with him.  We got brunch at Foothill (one of the dorms, extremely far out of the way).  It was a terrible decision because the vegan chicken nuggets (which we came for which Favio made us come for) were not as good as expected and the rest of the food was mediocre at best.  The one good thing I got out of it though was a nice picture of the campanile.  See below:

You can see Favio at the bottom if you look closely.

Later Saturday night, Favio and I saw Happy Feet 2.  The movie theater was quite deserted.  There was one lady that announced her presence to us by saying that she would be back in a bit with popcorn.  I don't know why she told us this, but I like to think it was because we looked like such kind young gentleman that she was willing to divulge this valuable piece of information to us.  Not to omit any details, but she did indeed  come back with popcorn... in case you were wondering...  The movie was cute.  Not much plot and the music was meh, but it was cute nonetheless.  After the movie we had to walk back to Favio's dorm IN THE POURING RAIN.  It was sooooooo cold and sooooo wet.  We were miserable.  We also only had one umbrella.  I decided to stay the night in Favio's dorm (specifically the lounge) because I didn't want to walk back to my dorm in the rain.  (It was that bad.)

No one cares about Sunday, soooooo moving on. (I definitely wasn't missing anything to put here I just decided not to....)

On Monday night Cole, Matt and I went to a "star party."  These are events put on by my astronomy course where everyone looks through a telescope at objects in the sky.  We went because we needed to go for a lab.  We were there for two hours, from 11:30-1:30, and it was sooooooo cold (notice a trend?).  We saw the Orion Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy, the Pleiades, and Jupiter (+ moons!).  The first three were like: "Oh, yes, I see that blurriness.... *did not see anything*."  Jupiter was pretty cool though.  You could see the storms on it, and all four moons were visible.  Overall, the star party was kind of disappointing but hey, without it what would I have put for Monday night?

And now we get to this Tuesday.  I met with my Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, and girlfriend again (ok introductions are in order now because they will probably come up again.  Aunt Maralyn, Uncle Ted, Daniel, and Nallaly (pronounced Neigh-All-Lee)  for a delicious dinner.  These past two dinner were actually in honor of Daniel's 25th birthday.  The first one was on the actual day of his b-day, and this one was the "take two" because my uncle wasn't there for the first one.  We went to this place called Saha.  It is an "Arabic Fusion" restaurant.  Regardless of whatever quality of food you conceived in the last two seconds, I can assure you that this food was gooooooooooooooooood.  My relatives always seem to take me to the best places (note for the future...)  I got red curry tofu.  Best tofu I have ever had in my life.  We also got dessert.  I got creme brulee.  It was soooooooo delicious.  My cousin got something called Dulche Picchu, a play off the well known monument.  I have to say that out of the five desserts we got (one named "Slap Yo Mama")  this by far had the best presentation.  Exhibit A:

Also damn tasty....

So I'm now at the end of my post for this week. I really enjoyed writing this one, probably my favorite since we started this blog.  As Rachael said on Friday, I sometimes forget what this blog really does for us.  It allows us to keep in touch with.....yeah you guys know what I'm saying.  A couple last things before I go.

I am SOOOOOO EXCITED to come home you have no idea (or do you?).  I will be back in Newport in less than 24 hours, hopefully seeing you in that time-span as well.  I'm sad that this break is so short, but I am sure that it will be thoroughly enjoyed.  Also, I am extremely excited for the weekend.  Not this one, but the following one because I will be going to Favio's homeland of Woodland.  He assures me it is nothing special, but nonetheless I am extremely excited.

And the last thing I will touch on is something sad, but something that I think has made me stronger.  I lost my grandma recently (Nov. 9th to be specific) and it was sad to see her go because I was extremely close to her.  I realize though that it is not good to dwell on the past, but rather move forward into the future.  This truth (universally acknowledged?)  has been rather applicable to my life in the past weeks, and I hope that if you guys ever feel like life's not going the way it should you remember that dwelling on how its going is not going to change anything, it is what you do in the future that will have an impact.

Love you Grandma

Can't wait to see you all!

- Jason