Doggs I am all kinds of arrogant

Here's a fun little anecdote from my life.

I've been trying to get next to this girl for like a month now, but it's been kind of hard. She's smokin' hot, and we hung out a couple times and things went well. A couple weeks ago she was all like "oh hey yo, I have so much homework that I can't really hang out much at all. Plus I am into things like interpretive dance and I must practice my dancing for many hours a day because I have a performance soon." I was all like, "oh that's cool, I totally understand where you're coming from because I'm a sensitive guy and understand emotions and obligations and all that." Then I smiled winningly and I could tell she was just going crazy for me on the inside. I knew this in my mind.

On Saturday I went to her dancing performance to show how much I cared about the things she found interesting and because my homegirl told me it would score me mad "[girl] points." (Her original phrase was more alliterative, but I'm reluctant to post it on a family website such as this.) The dancing was actually pretty cool, and after the performance I all was like "Yo girl that dancing was basically very cool. You were incredibly elegant and beautiful I was mesmerized by your fluid movements." She was all like "Oh man boy thank you so much for coming I'm very glad that you did." *Hug*

Then she like looked at some people who were her friends I guess, because she hugged them too. I didn't feel threatened, because my powers of observation ascertained that her friends were in fact two girls and a gay guy. I thought it was cute that her gay friend gave her a flower. Then I left and went to a party.

A couple days later I saw the gay guy and he gave me a look and I was like woah dogg why you got to be lookin' at me like that dogg. That is what I thought though I did not say it out loud. I thought it was unusual that a guy like him would give a guy like me a look, but then I had an epiphany all of a sudden. So I was like oh man maybe I just assumed he was a gay dude because I'm so arrogant that I think I'm the only guy who's interesting in the girl even though she's incredibly hot.

I was like maybe I should find out what's up so I was like "hey girl is that a thing with you and the flower man?" and she was like "yeah it's basically a thing" and I was like oh dogg. It turns out I am exactly as arrogant as I thought I might have been.

Ba dum dum psh!

Editor's note: Obviously I took some artistic license with the dialogue. The picture is related. I'm looking arrogant, and I haven't shaved my goatee in nine days. I'm starting to look like Dad.

The Library

So last night I headed over to the library to do some research on witch hunts in early modern England. I got a little research done, but mostly the library distracted me. That place is worse than youtube. I started out looking at historical studies of witch hunts, saw a book called Whores of the Devil, which I just had to flip through, then a few books later found myself browsing a 150 year old book about L'Occulte. The book was in French, but it was super cool anyway. Over an hour later I was sitting on the floor a few shelves over reading Nietzsche. I don't really get Nietzsche. I also flipped through the 1910 archives of the Journal of Parapsychology.

After 90 minutes of book hopping I remembered that I wasn't there to just wander around and actually started studying. I could totally wander around in there for hours.

My Job Gets Pretty Real

Today was a fairly standard day at work, for the most part. I helped a few kids with their math homework, apparently rounding is hell of hard. I tried unsuccessfully to remember this one little girls name. It was either Tejan or Tejar, which is pronounced either Tay-zhan or Tay-zhar. Ashley and Margot I can handle. Tejan slips right out of my mind, and I feel like I'm always mispronouncing it and I think the nine year olds are all gonna laugh at me.

After the tutoring part was over I went out on the playground to play. All the boys asked me to play Man on the Run, a tag-like game, and the girls wanted me to do flips with them on the monkey bars. The boys were more insistent, so I opted to play their game, but it turns out I probly should have chilled with the girls.

Naturally all these fifth and sixth grade boys have something to prove by outrunning a college kid, so I had to be it first. It went alright for awhile, until I started to get into it. I got really into it. So into it that I wasn't really thinking that I was 160 pounds of sheer testosterone and these were a bunch of 11 year olds.

There I was, running down this kid, he was kinda fast, I was a lot faster, when all of a sudden he takes a dive. I took a split second to analyze my surroundings. There's a fairly solid looking wrought iron fence about ten feet ahead of me. There's a fairly solid looking oak tree a few feet in front and to my left, with treacherous roots writhing about on the ground. There's a fallen 12 year old directly in front of me. I was going too fast to avoid all three obstacles. I realize I'm going to have to take on at least two of them. My cognitive powers told me that, because of the child's position in relation to the tree, there's a chance that I'd put him in the hospital if I used him to arrest my momentum.

I decided to not seriously injure a small child and did a graceful jump. I'm not really sure what happened next, but a couple seconds later I found myself pushing myself to my feet and spitting out a mouthful of sand. I started to express my feelings verbally, but then I realized where I was and said something to the effect of "Shhhiiiiiiiiuuh..."I did a quick check of my electronics, which were all fine. I feel a little dazed, I must have hit the ground kind of hard. The kids are yelling at me to start the game up again. I am still it after all.

I groggily take up the game, chase down some slow kid and make him it, and head over to the girls. Maybe they're not being so violent. "Mr. Ross you're really sandy," says Tejan/ar, studying me critically.

"Yeah I kind of fell down."

"Mr. Ross, you're bleeding," says Ashley, pointing to my elbow.

"Oh. I am." I am.

They pepper me with dozens of questions and I tell them to chill while I go wash my face. I look like a wild animal. My face is totally covered in sand. I try to wash it off, but the school bathrooms have those damn push button sinks so I can't ever actually get any water to my face. I kind of brush some sand off and head home early.

I've still got sand in every orifice on my head, and my elbow has a golf ball sized lump on it. Okay maybe not golf ball sized, but it's swollen. I got injured playing tag with elementary school children.

Editor's note: I'm incredibly white. I didn't realize until I saw my arm next to my tummy in that picture.

I'm moving farther south.

I woke up on a fine sunny morning, exactly one week ago. I watched the palm tree across the quad dance playfully in a light breeze and took in the warm glow of the tile roofs below my window basking in the sun. It looked like a beautiful day for a run around Audubon park. I threw on some shorts and a t-shirt and headed down on the elevator. When I got off several people got on, all wearing hoodies and jeans, and all acting like they'd just had to brave a blizzard. The girl working the desk had on a stocking cap and a winter jacket, and was telling someone that it wasn't supposed to get above 70 all day.

Pansies. I thought, You should see Cimarron County this time of year, and opened the door.

I was greeted with a furious gust of freezing cold air that took my breath away. What the hell is this? My sub-tropically minded mind thought. I immediately started shivering. I began to walk quickly off towards the park. After walking quickly for about a block I knew I'd have to run to keep my blood from freezing. I balled my hands into fists to keep from getting frostbite and ran off at a furious pace. After a few minutes I could feel the warmth returning to my legs and arms, and my heart wasn't feeling quite so sluggish, but my fingers still felt like little cubes of ice. By the time I reached the park my nose was running and my cheeks were surely nice and rosy. As I made my way around the park I noticed that very few New Orleanians were out in this monstrous weather, and the ones that were were dressed for the occasion. I saw an elderly couple powerwalking in knee length parkas with the hoods up. A mom pushed a stroller that contained a gigantic ball of blankets that nearly completely concealed a toddler. Here I was, running along nearly naked, about ready to drop dead of exposure at any moment.

After a couple miles my lungs were on fire, the bitter cold air seared them with every breath. My ears were aching from the punishing wind and my tears were turning my eyelashes into little icicles. Through an incredible feat of man vs nature I made it back to campus. I remembered that there was a thermometer on one of the buildings and ran over to check out what mind blowing temperatures I was barely surviving. Surely it was the low 40s, maybe high 30s. When I reached the thermometer I thought I was either hallucinating or I'd forgotten how to read one. 64? There's no way that's right. I'm about to die here. My cold numbed mind couldn't process this. I dejectedly walked back to the dorm and jumped in a hot shower until feeling returned to my toes.

You people have to come down here for Christmas, because I won't survive December in Holyoke.

Yo-Yo Ma!

That's right people. I saw Yo-Yo Ma, the world famous cello virtuoso and winner of over a dozen Grammys, performing with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. These tickets have been impossible to get for weeks now, unless you're willing to drop upwards of 200 bones. Luckily for me, a friend of mine purchased a couple tix back in June. Also luckily for me, but very unfortunately for her, Matt's date got mortally ill at the last minute and couldn't go, so the free ticket fell into my lap.

Matt was kind enough to let me borrow a suit, (he has like six or eight, it's crazy), and we headed off to the Mahalia Jackson Theater. The first act, or whatever they call it in classical music, was the LPO with a big choir and a little boy soprano soloist. They sang some psalms set to some totally sweet music and it was radical.

After the intermission Yo Mama himself came onto the stage. The sold out crowd went nuts, or as nuts as that kind of crowd will ever get, I guess. After running around stage smiling like a madman and jovially shaking hands with the first violin and the maestro several times he sat down to play. I thought maybe he'd just kind of sit there and play, I mean after all he's been performing since he was five, but he still put everything he had into it. Even though he's a true master of his art the music was still hitting him and you could tell he was feeling it. It was pretty inspiring, a lot like seeing Victor Wooten. I was a little bit disappointed that he only played one piece with the Orchestra and one short solo piece, but it was still a great experience. After he trotted off stage for the last time I was expecting for people to shout for an encore, I mean he had gotten two standing ovations and I sure as hell wanted him to play some more, but people just started to leave.

The music was great, but the crowd was ridiculous. They just sat and listened, which I can appreciate, I mean the drunken imbeciles at the Republic (a music bar downtown) can sometimes get annoying, but at the end of pieces there was merely polite applause. No cheering, no whooping, no bravos, no magnificos, no "I love you Yo-Yo!" or anything, just obligatory clapping. After Yo-Yo's solo piece I wanted to jump around and go woohoo!, but everyone just stood up and clapped, maybe a little louder than usual, and when he jogged (he jogged everywhere) offstage everybody immediately started to leave.

After the show I learned that if you're wearing a suit, go to a classy bar, and don't mind paying way more than you would at The Boot (the bar right on the edge of campus) you won't get carded. Useful knowledge.

Yo People: I'm gonna try to update M-W-F from now on, to keep things kinda regular. I've just been going haphazardly till now, and it annoys me when bloggers I follow do that. M-W-F means Monday Wednesday Friday, in case any of my readers are simpletons.

Some Stuff I've Learned

I've learned some pretty serious stuff in college.

I've learned that if I don't do any homework over fall break I'm gonna have to spend all afternoon on Sunday in the library, and the top picture is what my face looks like.

I've learned that I need to remember girls names, because after I've talked to them eight or ten times and theyf find it appropriate to hug me it's too late to ask them again. I've figured out the perfect way around this problem that I have. I see the girl, I say "Hey, I don't have your number yet, wanna put it in here?" and I hand her my phone, which is all primed to receive a new number. Later I look through my contacts and the name I don't recognize is the cute chica who's name I couldn't remember! This has worked on at least one occasion. My reaction to my brilliance can be seen in picture number two.

I've learned to never, ever, ever leave expensive electronics on the ground. I was reading on my kindle, got hell of tired, put in on the floor next to my bed and drifted off to sleep. I woke up a couple hours later, put my feet on the floor and heard a sickening crack. I instantly knew what was up. I spat forth a stream of expletives that would give Grandma a heart attack. See picture three.

I picked up my device and it looked completely fine. There were no marks or blemishes on the screen or elsewhere. I then flipped the power switch and Lewis Carrol faded away to be replaced with horrible black blobs. Picture four.

Luckily it's still under warranty, so I'm confident that I'll be able to resolve the issue for just the cost of shipping it back to amazon. Raaaa.

Midterms, Man.

So I'm totally done with midterms. Some people haven't even started theirs but I was lucky and had my last one on Friday. It's been kind of a rude awakening realizing that I have to study and crap here. Tulane's academic standards are a little higher than BCHS' I think. I've only gotten two grades back so far, but I'm pretty confident that I'm doin' aiiight.

I got a low B in Astronomy because I never paid attention in class or opened my textbook. I was forced to reevaluate my astronomy learning paradigm. I got a B?+ on my Early Modern England test, which was crazy hard. Two essays in 75 minutes? That's craziness! I don't really know what a B?+ is. I never got one of those in high school. I tried looking at her comments that she wrote in the margins but those didn't make sense either. Maybe I'm not evaluating her handwriting correctly, but "very way the method of statute in ~ parliament choser to beak the power of Rowe," "ery left Prtestat cowil 2 tutors for his son," and "you have the main poits but you aren't hey ssies!" don't make much sense to me.

I think I'm gonna have to do more homework and less socializing and internetting from now on. Balls.

Sleep.

I usually try to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but sometimes it doesn't happen like that. Last night I drank me a caffeinated beverage at like 11, not even thinking about the consequences of my rash actions. Rashctions. Rashactions. Actos precipitadas.

I ended up staying up until 3:30. I was feeling uncontrollably poetic, so I finished yet another ridiculous love song. I experimented with diminished minor chords. I talked with mah roommate about women. We spent a lot of time speculating on whether they still did arranged marriages in China. I sat on the floor in the hall and discussed Pascal's Wager with a guy who subscribes to Computer Power User Magazine and a Jewish dude from New Jersey. I thought about Aristotle's conditional regress argument. I got in bed at 2:30, and tossed and turned for half an hour. Then on a whim I got up and took a shower. There were two other guys showering.

Maybe if I didn't stay downtown until four (or five. Or six.) every Friday and Saturday I'd be able to sleep better on Sundays. Who knows.

Also, it turns out I just have a regular old cold, and I'm almost over it. I kinda wanted to have swine flu, just to say I did.

Some serious New Orleans Jazz

A few days ago I realized that I was living right in the middle of one of the coolest music scenes in the country and I wasn't taking advantage of it. So last night I took a break from the whole standing around in frat houses with hundreds of sweaty people and trying to come up with increasingly elaborate excuses for why I'm not drinking the horrible cheap vodka mixed with kool-aid, (It's free! Come on, man!) and headed downtown with a fellow music lover. I was lucky enough to find a fellow music lover who also happened to be a devastatingly cute sophomore girl, so I was feeling optimistic about the night.

After a surprisingly uneventful streetcar ride we arrived in Downtown New Orleans, which I'm increasingly convinced is the coolest place in the world. I had no plan in mind really, I just knew that Decatur, Frenchman and Bourbon had tons of live music. So we started up Decatur, and stopped at the first place with a band. It was the Crescent City Brew House, a cool restaurant that brews its own beer. The band was pretty good, there was a drummer, an electric bass, a dude wailing on a Gibson L-4 CES ( the guitar George Thorogood played a lot), and a tenor sax player. The waiter seemed kind of put out when we just ordered water and watched the band.

After like half an hour of that we decided to go see what else was up. Further down the street there was this cool outdoor restaurant with a jazz band, and we caught the end of their set. Further up the street there was this really divey honky tonk that we went in for about two songs. There was a pretty decent blues band playing tunes that made me want to sit at the bar, smoke a cigarette and drink a couple domestic beers, but after I looked around and realized that we were the youngest people there by about 20 years and had the most teeth by about 7 or 8 we decided to cut out.

We passed up a reggae bar that had a cover charge and decided not to go to Snug Harbor, a fairly famous venue, because you had to pay 20 bucks to get into the concert hall. After wandering around some more we headed for Bourbon, and it turns out there's actually some really good venues there, in addition to the places where cover bands are doing passable renditions of Mötley Crüe songs for legions of drunken partyers. This one place, Fritzel's, was awesome. The Fritzel's Jazz Band, which consisted of a drummer, a piano player, a clarinet man, and a guy on the string bass totally ripped. The bar was really cool too and the band played at a totally reasonable level so my ears weren't ringing when I left. There was a one drink minimum, but they didn't price gouge too badly. 4 dollars for a bottle of water and live entertainment is pretty reasonable.

After we left Fritzel's the night was only marginally musical. Bourbon was crazy, the Mississippi was pretty, and powdered sugar got everywhere.

A Streetcar Named Belligerence

Last night a few friends and I decided to go to Café du Monde. It's this place in the French Quarter that's open all night and has awesome beignets, which are these fried bread donut things covered in mountains of powdered sugar. They're awesome and cheap so we go there a lot.

So we get on the streetcar to go downtown and a couple stops later these tourists from England get on. One of them smiled and said something to the effect of "hey mate" or some other harmless British type thing to a guy a couple seats in front of us. The guy jumps up and starts yelling at the British guy. His language was quite colorful. Judging from his twitchyness and general bad behavior I'd say he was a crackhead or something. Who knows. He yelled at the limey for a couple minutes and then came and sat down directly behind him, right across the aisle from me, so he could "keep an eye on [the guy],[gosh darnit]" When the offensive Brit's female companion asked the guy what was wrong, the guy told her to "get out of [his darn] face." He then stuck his middle finger a couple inches from the British guy's nose, and told him he should be ready when he got off the trolley. Ready for what? I don't know.

After ten minutes of this insanity, where the tweaking New Orleans guy changed seats at least five times to "keep an eye on [the guy]," the streetcar driver stopped and came back to keep the peace. The crackhead was immediately incredibly friendly. When we all got of the trolley at Canal St. the British man was called a "fairy [guy]" and asked to "throw down right here."

I kind of wanted to see a fight, but the three girls I was with didn't, so we headed off to gruffle some sugary fried awesomeness.

I love this city.