Spring Break Recap

As the song goes: "It's been one week since you looked at me..." And yes it has been one week since I've blogged because spring break doesn't let me blog. Yes, there's more down time but there's less to write about, so I'm gonna take this opportunity to recap my spring break.
FRIDAY: The most uneventful of the Spring Break days because all I did was take a 6 hour train ride from Carbondale to Chicago, talk to the parents and play some video games that I haven't played in forever.
SATURDAY: Saturday was a turning point, not a Spring Break make or break kind of turning point, but something that might turn some things around while I'm back in Carbondale. I took my mom to the mall to get her nails done and usually while she gets her nails done I do some window shopping. Well this session of window shopping turned into a new outfit and a revelation. The new outfit, a nice button-up shirt with some black jeans. The relevation takes a bit more of an explanation. So there's this dance coming up at school, it's a formal dance in the mold of a prom or a homecoming, a dance of that nature. So it intrigued me to the point where I wanted to go, however the issue I had was that I didn't have a date. I'm not a believer of going stag to formals such as prom. The only reason people go to prom stag is to "keep their options open" and that only works for girls. Girls go 'stag' to keep their options open to either A) take guys from their perspective dates B) Get around ;-) if you catch my drift and C) aren't looking for anything in particular that night. Guys go stag, the only reason guys go stag is because they couldn't get a date, plain and simple. I didn't wanna be one of those guys. Heck, each time I went to prom (both junior and senior year of high school) I had one of the hottest girls there, so you really can't blame me if I don't wanna go stag after going with too beautiful girls in two different years. So, while I was window shopping I saw a nice khaki colored suit while my moms response was "my son's a black man" my response was "I forget one thing about myself, I look really good in a suit!" My moms response to that was "I'd hook you up if you had a date." There was my issue, I talked to my roomie and his girl and decided that I had options, options I was previously unaware of. And now, bang! I got a date, now for the suit. That would come later.
SUNDAY: Sunday was a big day. It was selection Sunday and it was the first episode of the Sopranos. Selection Sunday was cool, but I felt the Valley (The Missouri Valley Conference) was completely jobbed of at least one, if not two teams. In hindsight the the committee did a good job selecting teams because the last two teams in (George Mason and Bradley) are in the sweet 16. But I think Missouri State should have been in ahead of the Air Force. Creighton shoulda been there but I can't find a team they should've replaced. The only issue I really had with the committee was the seeding. I agree with Wichita State's seeding as a 7 seed because they won the conference outright during the regular season. I don't agree with our seeding at all or where they placed North Carolina (noticeably two of my favorite teams) I'll also say that U of I got jobbed and so did Gonzaga when it came to the committee seeding. Carolina should have been placed in the Duke bracket as the 3 seed switching with Iowa who really got an unnecessary boost for winning the Big 10 tourney for a team taht was highly overrated all year. On top of that, the committee is always talking about trying to keep teams close to home. You kept Duke in Greensboro, NC so why couldn't you do the same for UNC? Lemme guess, because they're not Duke. Gonzaga should have gotten Tennessee's 2-seed which they didn't deserve and that was proved when Wichita beat them. Oh yeah I found the team that Creighton shoulda replaced, Seton Hall the team that Wichita beat by 20 points. Here comes the SIU shafting here. An 11 seed against West Virginia? The absolute biggest mis-match in the tournament pitting the experience and the size of West Virginia who's starting 5 was on last year's Elite 8 team that was only minutes away and a miraculous Lousiville comeback away from a Final Four date against an undersized, underexperienced, and undermanned team in SIU. SIU woulda been a better match up switching wth fellow MVC team Northern Iowa (10-seed) against Georgetown. Maybe an 8 or 9 seed, but yeah screwed! The Sopranos' was excellent.
MONDAY: Boring, filled out some tourney brackets which got lost somehow in the mess I know as my room. I cleaned it later, played some video games and that was really it.
TUESDAY: Watched Idol with my cousin, have two current crushes on Idol: the country girl that really is pretty dumb and Katie who's got a killer voice to go along with a killer figure. Played my cousin in baseball an for the first time ever I beat him!!!
WEDNESDAY: Pretty boring in anticipation of the NCAA tournament.
THURSDAY: Lunch with my sister, did some talking caught up on some things and enjoyed. I spent the day really watching the NCAA tournament in the comfort of my own home. Had Tony, Mike and Brian come over to watch the Illini demolish the Air Force. That's so un-American of U of I not to let Air Force win. We had pizza played some NCAA college hoops and that was the night.
FRIDAY: I was supposed to go suit shopping early with my mom, but then my roomie came over to watch the SIU game. Unfortunately we were demolished by 20+ points in the mismatch of the year. It was quite a depressing game. Towards the end it seemed like they were fatigued and quit caring. But the broadcast team of Verne Lunquist and Bill Raftery had nothing but good things to say about SIU whether it was about Jamaal Tatum's aggressiveness when it comes to scoring, the defensive presence of Bryan Mullins, the inside play of Falker and Shaw, the dominance over the last 5 years of the Salukis over the MVC or the stifiling defense the Salukis and overall the Valley play. However all that was no match for a team that hit 60% of their threes and 90% of their foul shots. On top of that my roomie didn't leave, he stayed over for most of the night. We played video games watch some more tourney games and even had dinner. Friday night, despite the loss was the highlight of the week.
SATURDAY: Went suit shopping with mom, bought a new suit and I look supa-fly. I can't wait to reveal it on dance night. Went shopping with mom after that and later watched some tourney games before I went to visit Anna who I only visited once, and it was an absolute suprise to the both of us, it was a spur of the moment.
SUNDAY: I'll start with early Sunday morning where we spent the night driving down lake shore drive taking pictures. I spent my day packing and getting ready for the 6 hour train ride. Unfortunately it was a long train ride. Not only wa my university eliminated, but my favorite team the University of North Carolina Tar Heels was eliminated by friggin George Mason, that made it a sad trip down to Carbondale.
And that was my vacation. I'll get to other issues later.

Today's Uneventful Blog

You know it was a slow day when you know it's gonna be a slow blog day. Lemme see, two quizzes, one good one was a lot of writing and quite stressful. This afternoon was blown really when the US lost to Canada in baseball. I took an hour out of my time to write my politics paper hopefully that went well. Really, it was a boring night. I think the highlight of the night was talking to my roomie's ex Meagan. She's fun to talk to, we talked for a while over the phone tonight, I'm pretty sure she called to talk to him, but he ain't around anymore and we instead talked and I really enjoyed it. I love talking to people. Heck, we even made plans to finally meet each other when she comes to Chicago this summer and we're gonna go shopping cuz yeah we both like shopping, go figure. Oh and I'm leaning towards going to country thunder. I know it's early but if I go with the right group I'll have a good time. I think I'm gonna throw on a movie as I go to bed. I don't know what i'm gonna pick though. All in all, today was quite uneventful, unfortunately.

Now, That Was Refreshing

I have a half hour to do this post, so I'll try to make this as quick as I can. I finally got my issues resolved with everyone which makes me feeel a lot better. In fact, it feels like a big weight has been taken off my shoulders. Sure, I still have my doubts if I should have come out with what I said, but the fact that I said it and it really helped out the conflicting situation, I guess I'm glad I said what I said.
So what are my issues you ask? Well, on the surface it was the diminishing relationship between my roommate and I which was based on shots that went back an forth that included subliminal shots, shots that could have been taken the wrong way, misinterpreted statements of hypocracy and things like that were the things that were bothering me. And what bothered me is that they were said and that they were from people that I didn't expect to be saying that which really disturbed me. So that was, superficially, what was the issue that caused drama.
Deeper than that was my insecurities. My constant unhappiness/depression that has been keeping me down and essentially puts me down whenever I'm here in Carbondale. On top of that is my general unhappiness and awkwardness around couples, especially me being the single kid. On top of that, my main issue with the situation was seeing how things between a certain couple went and my jealousy. Not necessarily the jealousy of the couple themselves as a whole, but the jealousy that I haven't been in that situation and my belief that they take each other for granted. Those were my issues. In fact, that didn't come out until the end when something struck a cord and I nearly flipped and almost didn't wanna talk about it. In fact I didn't want to talk about it because of the reasons that I didn't wanna have that conversation with those people in general because I didn't want to be around for the reaction. It turned out being the best decision I made all night. It changed the mood of the conversation, it changed the tone in which everyone spoke and really resolved things. If you were here, you could pin point that as the turning point in the conversation. Even I am on record of saying before that point I felt that the prior conversation was going around in circles.
All in all, I'm glad it's over because now I can resume things as they were before. Granted I blew another day to work on this paper and yeah, I might be in some trouble when it comes to school. However, as of now, I am at peace with myself, which I believe is the most important thing as of right now.

now to take my meds as it seems like i'm gonna get sick again and then go to bed. good night from carbondale. and by good night i mean that all is well that ends well!!!

Weekend Review

Alright so it's Sunday night/Monday morning and I have things, lotsa things on my mind. But first the weekend.

• FRIDAY was quite underwhelming. My roommate was very wasted because he started drinking at 1 pm and really ruined my night come to think about it. Not really, I'd just like to think so just because he's such an assbag when he's drunk really he has no right to say shit when I get drunk ever again because I'm easier to take care of, I'm not a hassle, sure I have my insecurities when I'm drunk but I'm the farthest thing from an assclown that you can be. So Friday we ended up out, and it was pretty boring and uneventful. It's because I wasn't drinking, that changes the whole bar scene and party scene in Carbondale, I'm thankful I have only 35 days of this left. So I was quite uncomfortable at the bars and on top of that I really didn't wanna be out in the first place. So basically, Friday=BAD!
• SATURDAY was a bit of a different story. Actually, Saturday was the second best day of this weekend which shouldn't be suprising since Friday sucked the big one. So Saturday really was basketball day. I woke up and turned on UCONN vs. Louisville and UCONN won which was good because with their win they would most likely clinch the #1 team in the country with Dook's loss to Florida State. Then there was the SIU semi-final victory over Northern Iowa which I kinda described in the last blog. It was such a hard fought victory and if you were there you could see how nervous I was, I was friggin twitching like a crack addict. So after the big UNI win all the people that were watching the game gather up the idea to say "hey let's go to St. Louis for the final" and we all bought our tickets and well we were on our way to St. Louis the next day. It was so great because we were all talking about going for the whole weekend next year. But what made this so special is that it was so spur of the moment and everyone was so excited the general mood was "Fuck it, let's go to St. Louis tomorrow!" And believe it or not, that wasn't the highlight of the night. The highlight of the night was the biggest win that I've ever seen the University of North Carolina have (minus the National Championship game) in my history as a UNC fan. Not only did Carolina beat Duke, take all of this into consideration. Duke was #1 at the time. It was Senior Day at Duke, meaning the final game at Cameron Indoor and againt the Heels for JJ, Shelden and Melchioni and all of thos maniachal idiotic fans at that hell whole known as Coach K court. And despite Carolina's slow start and Duke's hot start, for a good portion of the game, UNC was beating Duke by double digits. I really wish now that I woulda blown it up more in my roomie's face cuz I know if it was Duke doing it he'd be up my ass, but us Carolina fans are a little more classy than the Dookies. Take this into consideration too. Carolina came into the game major underdog and no one gave them a chance. Fuck, remember when Carolina came into the season unranked defending national championship. Take into consideration that UNC's core was to include 4 top-15 NBA picks that weren't there, not to forget about Josh Smith who went to the NBA early and Jameson Curry that transferred to Oklahoma State after confrontation with Uncle Roy and those gus were supposed to come in with Marvin Williams. Oh yeah and don't forget the top 4 for UNC, the freshies that outscored Dook's seniors on senior night 55-51. That was the high light of the night. UNC handing it to Dook, the score might have been close, but really Duke was not only spanked on their own court, but really they were pantsed and exposed in front of a national television audience!
• However, without a doubt the highlight of the weekend was the result of the randomness that occured after SIUs win over UNI in the MVC tourney semi finals, and that would be our trip to St. Louis. It was really anticipated, I was hyped for this game, I have been waiting for a moment like this FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE. A championship game, I've never been to a championship game of any kind so this was really special for me. We got to St. Louis and for starters I wasn't impressed with the city itself, it was like something was missing. In fact, St. Louis was more like a suburb for me. So anyways to the highlight was actually the game. First we painted faces, not only ours who were the original intendants of this but random kids that wanted to be painted, Saluki fans only of course. And speaking of Saluki Nation, we deserve a standing ovation from ourselves to ourselves because not only did we show up in droves, we made our presence known from the moment the gates opened. Today Saluki Nation was loud, proud and in the end happy. Throughout the game we made our presence known as fans. And yes, the Salukis did come out slow, but we stayed on the D and we let the D turn into O and suprisingly we were only down one at half time. And that was the last time we were down. Randal Falker (my adopted favorite player) started the second half with a monsterous dunk and for 10 minutes the Bradley Braves were held scoreless. The Dawgs forced numerous turnovers, got several key offensive rebounds, made key defensive plays like blocks and made little plays like blocking out and interrupting the passing lanes. It was very reminiscent of the 20+-to-nothing run against Northern Iowa last year in the second to last home game of the Darren Brooks era. But what was a close game turned into a blow out, complete dominance by SIU, dominance that we saw glimpses of throughout the year and for this weekend they put it all together. This is what we were supposed to see all year. But really, it was symbolic of what happens when a team has their backs against a wall. Hopefully we carry this momentum into the NCAA tourney. And to think a few weeks ago we were talking how the NIT would have been good for the young Salukis. Oh yeah and the celebration that took place after the final buzzer, much better than the one at the SIU Arena after last year's regular season title. Something about winning a post-season tournament is so special. For once we get to relax because we know we're in, there will be no sweating it out. Oh yeah and another thing, my advice to the Dawgs. If you guys learned anything from the Bulls dynasty of the 90s, keep the black shoes!!!!

Wow, I'm in such a good mood, I won't even post my insecurities, things I'm mad about and other stuff from this weekend and this past week that's worth posting but not when I'm in a good mood. GO DAWGS! GO SIU! and soon enough I'll be chanting GO CUBS GO!