Andrew

another update

mmoin@optonline.net — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 04:59:43 GMT

by the way, about two days after that January entry, Natalie and I got back together- apparently most of her "no going past first base until marriage" thing was more an act because she didn't want to look "like a slut". Things are going pretty great on the whole since then I'd say.

my california trip!

mmoin@optonline.net — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 04:57:04 GMT

Last weekend (Friday-Monday) I took a trip to San Jose, where I stayed
with my friend Pete, who's pretty awesome. He let me stay in the living
room of his shared house, and drove me around the whole time, so the whole trip
only cost me about $300. Here are a few unordered journal entries.

when I got home

The two main events of my trip to "norcal" were my visits to Stanford
and Boalt Hall (Berkeley) School of Law. And now for the reviews:

Stanford: I got to Stanford about noon Saturday after an enjoyable morning
walking through beautiful and extremely expensive (our breakfast at a
moderately nice cafe was $26 for two people) Palo Alto. Palo Alto is
beautiful by the way, and has a really nice Apple Store. Anyway yeah, so we
parked in the admissions office parking lot, because really, why would they
be in on Saturday and we couldn't find any visitor parking.

The campus is fairly secluded- you couldn't really walk from the campus into
town, you'd need a car or at least a bike. Luckily there is a convenient
bus line which seems to go all over campus and into Palo Alto, which seems
to be par for the course on any big campus (Yale and Berkeley have similar
on-campus bus services).

The buildings are all in excellent condition, but they all sort of look the
same- a general mid-1800's Mexican-style architecture. This consistency of
design, combined with the fact that the on-campus maps all change
orientation depending on which way they're facing, made it realllllly hard
to find our car.

The Law building is nice, the law student center (their answer to keefe, I
guess) is sorta bare bones, with a mediocre looking weight room, a computer
lab, and a few miscellaneous rooms. The campus also seemed pretty dead, not
too many people outside, even though it must've been like 80-85 degrees at
the time.

Overall- I like the place, but it put me off a bit for some reason (probably
that you can't just walk into town). In any case it doesn't matter much,
since it's the #2 law school in America and my chances of getting in are
probably 10-20% at most.

Berkeley: I arrived in Berkeley w/Pete at about 2pm Sunday afternoon, with
much help from his GPS system on his SUV. Boalt Hall School of Law (note to
self: if you choose to go there, keep in mind you'll be explaining that
Boalt is the actual name of the law school for the rest of your legal
career. This combined with reminding people of the silent-ness of the "h"
in Amherst may drive you insane) is located in a single seven story complex
which contains the lecture halls, several courtyard areas, a bookstore,
lockers (I think most law schools have these because of all the big
textbooks), all the profs offices, and a bajillion other things. It's
actually a really nice building, and no one hassled me when I just walked
in- a good thing and a bad thing I guess. I started to walk into a
classroom to watch what I thought was a lecture but it turns out it was an
exam, so I got out of there pretty quickly.

The surrounding area is neat- semi-urban and very diverse. It reminded me
sort of a cross of Providence and New Haven, but warm. Tons of clothing
stores, places that sell drug paraphernalia (like in Amherst, marijuana is
deprioritized/decriminalized sorta), record stores, and everything you'd
expect right around one of the most liberal, "hippest", and largest colleges
in America. Lots of construction going on, which I guess is a sign of
vitality at least. There were also tons of people out everywhere. Ate at a
decent pub.

Overall: Really really liked the place, but Berkeley is "only" ranked about
#10 in the rankings, and considering I'll almost definitely get into a
couple places ranked above it that are also closer to home, I doubt there's
any way I could convince my parents to let me go there. I mean, they're
going to be paying most of the bill. Fun day though, plus all their campus
maps actually point in the right direction. Amazing.

monday morning at the airport

I'm here in oakland airport, online through wireless access (good stuff),
and I'm just noticing all the plans that get updated way too much without
real content. My planwatch (an amherst thing) has about 70 people on it,
which isn't really too much, but far too many of these people update almost daily, usually with
1-2 sentence updates or online quiz results, and never read my plans. Thus,
I am instituting a new policy. If your plan updates are boring and you
never read my plan, you're off the planwatch. If your plan updates are
boring but you read my plan habitually and/or are one of my best friends
(like justin, haha), I will continue to read your plan like the
internet-addicted dork I am. If your plan updates are really interesting or
hilarious (which really only applies to rich from time to time
because of his willingness to post almost anything) I will continue to read
it regardless. In any case, yeah, I ask that you try to write interesting
updates rather than glorified shoutouts, because without planworld to waste
time I am forced to resort to being productive.

In other news, I'll write about my trip to SF/San
Jose/Oakland/Stanford/Berkeley later today hopefully. It was actually
rather fascinating.

rant alert- It's 10am Saturday here in San Jose, and although I'm awake because I'm
still stuck on New York time, my friend pete and his roommate are still
asleep. So I'm going to rant on something that I have thought about for a
long time, and that is compliment inflation (also partly inspired by the
article rich sent me a few months ago):

Basically, it's this- anything less than the most extreme positive comment
is damning with faint praise. I was talking to a girl a while ago and she
asked me what I thought of one of her friends. I said, "she's cute" (which
I sincerely meant) and her response was one of near-indignation, as if I'd
just implied that she was horribly ugly.

Many practicers of the arts of all kinds, musicians, artists, writers,
actors, feel like they've been harshly criticized unless their work is
hailed as "genius" or "amazing".

At nearly all top colleges the F is long-dead, the D now extinct, and the C
a dying species. In most cases in most departments, mediocre work gets you
a B+, competence an A-, and anything from above average to amazing is an A.
In some departments (naming them would make great fodder for another column)
this modicum of some sort of hierarchy of quality of work has disappared
completely, with the grades given often simply ranging from A- to A.
Amherst isn't even close to the worst offender in this regard- one need only
look at some other top schools (Brown and Wesleyan in particular) to see
schools that are far worse, with Wesleyan professors doling out A+'s now in
large quantities.

The worst part of this new trend is how it is being used to poison the minds
of children, who are being raised with the idea that they are the next
Mozart, Nureyev, Renoir, Stanislavski, Ford, whatever. At some point these
notions will have to be shattered, and the emotional impact on an individual
who has been raised to believe that they are a future giant of civilization
will be immense indeed. To some extent, we are now living in an even more
extreme version of the community of Lake Wobegon; no longer is everyone
above average, in fact, everyone is better than everyone else.

To anyone who agrees with what I'm saying, I encourage you to try to take
personal action against this horrifying trend. Each day, try to tell a hack
actor that they suck, a bad singer that they have no future, not even as an
American Idol, a teenage poet that they are pretentious and annoying, and
just in general crush the dreams of those with inflated senses of
self-worth. Or at least just stop calling people geniuses so much.
please.

roar

mmoin@optonline.net — Sat, 06 Dec 2003 15:51:33 GMT

So Natalie and I broke up last night. It went basically as well as it could've. See, apparently, she isn't comfortable with doing anything beyond making out until she gets married because she wants to remain "pure". I told her, in no uncertain terms, that there are only two kinds of guys in the world who would be ok with that- guys who would lie and then try to take advantage of her, and total dorks. In any case, in the end it was just conflicting beliefs- her literal catholic ones and mine. What can you do? It could've gone much worse.

Otherwise, I am now moved into my new suite in the "social dorms", with friends Justin and Greg. Many advantages, many disadvantages- I have a single, but it's small, there's a nice common room, but the dorm itself is farther from campus than my old one. There are parties all the time, and it gets a little ridiculous. Hmmph. I still have my name on the room change list, so I'll have the option of moving at the end of Feb. if things get too ridiculous.

Oh yeah, and I interview with Lehman Brothers on Tuesday. Maybe I'll have something to do this summer.

updates

mmoin@optonline.net — Tue, 30 Jul 2002 03:25:39 GMT

Last Friday night, Sriram and I were in my (parents') car, going through the rolodex, calling just about everyone we know in a fit of boredom. Pete was working, Jacob was working out, Casey and Ryan were nowhere to be found. Random others couldn't do anything. Finally, Sriram calls Fiona (a girl you probably don't remember from my entries from last summer) and we end up hanging out with her, Leigh, and an (annoying) friend of theirs who lives across the street from me.

It was pretty cool overall, all we did was drive around and eat, but it was good to see them again. Oddly enough, Fiona and I were completely comfortable around each other, after such an abrupt breakup at the end of the Summer last year.

It was a bit bittersweet to see her again, however- she seemed just like she was last year (same looks, same sweet/cute/really nice personality, everything), and it brought back all those memories. I'd never really imagined seeing her again.

It was a fun night, though.

In other news, my roommate Justin's girlfriend just found out she has a single (favor from an upperclassman friend on newspaper), thus in effect I have a quasi-single. score score!

alright alright, so nothing too interesting there, maybe i'll go to montreal again next month.

Montreal - the saga

mmoin@optonline.net — Wed, 24 Jul 2002 03:02:12 GMT

After 5 hours of anxious sleep last Tuesday night, I woke up to catch the 8:15am Amtrak to Montreal with three friends from HS (Sriram, Casey, and Ryan). That meant getting up at 5am, leaving at 6am, getting to Penn Station by 7am, and then finding out that the "new security measures" at the train station amount to walking through the gate and onto the train. No metal detectors, no searches, nothing. But hell, it was pretty convenient, and what terrorist would ever want to sneak into Canada?

The train was ok- pretty much a coach bus with a "dining car", which served frozen sandwiches and bottled water from a can! Then again, when you're on the train for 11 hours, there's nothing better to do. The frozen sandwiches were sold out by Albany.

Maxim Magazine, Go Fish, and my appetite were finished by the time we reached the border, so I wasted some time looking at the girls our age in the car who were vacationing from Australia.

Finally, we got into Montreal at about 7ish, and settled into Le Novotel Montreal (our hotel). Although we ended up with a room with a kingsize bed (not that useful for four guys) instead of two doubles, it was pretty nice and had a nice selection of Spectravision (tm) movies, from "The Rookie" to some German porn, which will figure into this story later.

Then we went to sleep.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Or not!

We went to this place called Bistro Rock Detente, and I went up to the maitre d' and said "bonsoir, quatre, s'il vous plait". Masking a bit of a smile, the girl sat us at a table. It was at this moment that I realized that six years of terrible public school French was not going to give me the ability to get the virtually all English-knowing Montrealers to talk to me in French.

We ordered a bottle of red wine, which sucked. Wine sucks. The food was pretty good though, and incredibly cheap for a relatively nice restaurant (like 60USD including drinks).

Then we went to "The Mad Hatter", where we ordered drinks at a bar. Another first. Two Smirnoff ices and a Corona, added to three glasses of wine gave me more than enough fuel (stupidity?) to go to our next destination.

The Gentleman's Club! Yes, I went to a strip club. But, um, I was pressured into doing it. I must say that it was a very weird experience. We went upstairs where the doorman followed us to our table and said, "generally, the doorman is given a two-dollar tip. that means me, now."

After that, though, it became pretty crazy. All these strippers were going up to guys to get them to buy private dances, which in Montreal are sort of different from the US. This enormous black woman came up to us and asked "would you like to touch my beautiful breasts and ass?" in a thick French accent. Casey and I said "nope, thanks anyway, but our friend right here (pointing to Sriram) does!" hahaha that was the best. I'm too drunk to remember what happened next, but we got out of there, since Sriram most certainly did not want a private dance, even if he was pretty drunk.

The night ended with late-night food at Maclean's, which I don't even remember at all. Casey tells me I had a cheeseburger.

The next morning we woke up bright and early at 11am which gave us enough time to jump into clothes, eat breakfast and rush to the subway to make the 1:35pm Expos game. There were a bunch of Expos fans there chanting "Mets suck!" to all us tourists.

Olympic Stadium was really nice, prices were very very low (box seats were $24 american!) and the 'spos are an awesome team. They beat the Mets 2-1.

Thursday night we went to Rue Crescent, which is where they have all those expensive "Exit" (a NYC club)-type clubs. After being too chicken to go into one of those (probably a good idea, it was all older people at the one we were looking at) we went into Vocalz, a karaoke bar. It was pretty fun and I tried to pick up a Canadian girl, who ended up leaving arm-in-arm with another girl. I think that was a real case of "it's not me, it's you."

Then we went to this crappy club with like 8 people in it. Luckily, 3 of them were 18-year old girls from Massachussets. Casey and I introduced ourselves to them, and Ryan and Sriram (of course) swooped in to talk to them. Casey left to go to the bathroom, Ryan and Sriram went somewhere for a minute, and I was left alone with these three girls with absolutely nothing to talk about. After another minute with my friends having left, I went off to find them. Oh well, no big deal. Somewhere along the way I had like 6 drinks.

The night ended with us enjoying the loud Quebecois karaoke at Vocalz (and one Japanese tourist mangling a Beatles song). Not the best night, but not bad at all either.

The next morning (Friday) we all woke up really early which was pretty weird, but we got ready and went out to check out Montreal. Apparently, during the day all there really is to do is go shopping. Sadly, the Underground City turned out to be nothing but a big mall that encompasses most of the downtown Metro stations. Blah. Finally, we wandered around the city and stopped at the UQAM (Universite Quebec a Montreal) which was really nice and had a beautiful courtyard.

That evening, we went to Ile Notre Dame and went to the artificial beach, which was amazing- filtered water and artificial sand actually produced a beach that compares pretty well to anything Long Island can offer. Plus, the girls were so hot! I must say the girls in Montreal were incredibly good-looking. I saw a dead ringer for Katie Holmes at a Metro station, and I must've said "ah oui!" 500 times (our code phrase for a pretty girl). I was very impressed and wish I went to McGill for a while.

After the artificial beach we went to Casino de Montreal (also on Ile Notre Dame, which is off the coast of Montreal). It would've been more fun if I didn't instantly lose $30 and all my friends hit the jackpot. After that I was a little bitter, I'll admit it.

We went to Rue St. Laurent after the Casino. We found this club called "Loft", which was filled with very hot Quebecois women. After like 2 hours of being chicken, Casey and I went over to this girl named Chantal. She seemed pretty cool, but as we sat down, a very drunken Sriram went and stole my seat. Apparently he had had 3 DRINKS. Is there some sort of Indian gene like that? Casey knew an Indian guy at Wesleyan who had to go to the hospital after 4.

That ruined any chances with Chantal and her friends. We started walking back, pretty dejected. I was sober by that point, but Casey, Ryan, and Sriram and his 3 drinks were still going strong, singing and being ridiculous. I was visibly annoyed, and went back to the hotel and went to sleep on the floor (it was my turn).

We slept until about noon on Saturday, and luckily the guys had forgotten (forgiven) me for getting really pissed at them. We went to Ben's (no relation to the also-pretty good American chain), which sells the best sandwiches in North America (not kidding, for like $6 American you get two amazing pastrami sandwiches). After that we just hung out at the hotel for a few hours and went to "Gay Village" (not kidding, that's the name) and had a great inexpensive dinner at a gay restaurant (not kidding again, there were paintings of guys making out on the walls).

That evening/night we went back to Loft and were feeling pretty unlucky again when we saw three American girls speaking pretty loud English. Casey and I went up to them and, feeling daring, pretended we were Quebecois. I was like "allo? vous etes americaines?" Casey said something similar.

They were completely tricked! But of course we revealed ourselves like three minutes later. The cutest by far, Kali (who turned out to be like 4'10" when she and her friends stood up) was nice, but Casey quickly mouthed "she's mine!" to me. Blah, whatever. The next girl smoked and was into crappy punk music and car repair. Um, no. The third wasn't bad at all, but Sriram had already "called dibs". So I sat at the next table and multiplied numbers up to the 37-times table (by the way, 37x37=1369). Finally, the girls wanted to go to another club, but with us (or more specifically, three of us). I was a little jealous because I was the 3rd (well actually 7th) wheel, but I grudgingly decided to go along because it would be pretty "sore loserish" of me to go back to the hotel alone.

Well, to put a long story short, we met up with the girls downstairs 10 minutes later to see them with three other guys, dancing and making out. How nice! They were tricking us! Well, I know it sounds bad, but that made me feel a lot better because I wasn't being left out. Sounds bad, but it's the truth.

And then it all went downhill. Casey was visibly torn up over Kali. We thought he was going to cry, but before he had the chance, he started vomiting from his 13 screwdrivers. He felt so terrible- physically and emotionally- I started singing Bob Dylan (his favorite musician) songs to him (Blind Willie McTell, whose lyrics I sort-of forgot, and Mr. Tambourine Man). I might be a dork, but I'm nice.

The next two hours, until about 3am, were spent trying to keep Casey conscious and leading him around town as we "searched" for Kali. Finally, we felt Casey was ok to go to sleep since he seemed a bit better.

At about 4am we went to get some quick food because we were pretty hungry. Montreal is really amazing, I must say, at dawn there were still guys playing guitar on the street while people sang along, and the sidewalks, clubs, and restaurants were still full. What a great, lively place.

After eating, I decided to go back to check on Casey and watch some WTSN (Canada's very weak answer to ESPN). Ryan and Sriram, though, ended up at Ultra Sexe. What were they thinking? Any desire for female companionship was pretty much eliminated by seing Casey's drunken heart broken.

Sriram and Ryan returned at 6ish to report that they had been propositioned for something that seemed suspiciously like sex while they were at the club. Ryan wasn't interested, and Sriram was turned off by the $50 American price (haha, he's pretty cheap), although I'll bet he really wanted to do it.

Finally it was time to go to the VIA Rail station to catch the Amtrak back to NYC. All this time, Casey was having perhaps the worst hangover ever. He must've thrown up 10 times that morning and looked so weak and in pain. Not fun. It was a good lesson for Sriram, though, who can get plastered from 3 drinks (as previously shown).

The Amtrak train left at about 10:30am, 40 minutes late. Not a good sign, especially when the conductor announced that in addition to the train being completely full, the train was out of food and water, and the train was sort of on the fritz, so we'd have to go incredibly slowly for a while. By the halfway point (about 4pm), we were going crazy. Finally, the snack bar picked up some more stuff at a station, which caused a virtual stampede.

Casey and I found ourselves standing behind an enormous gay jewish man. He was pretty funny although really annoying, and he kept complaining about how bad Amtrak was. I suggested an alternative hovercraft service, which didn't quite register as a joke with him.

When he got to the snack bar, they were out of all his "favorites" so he sort of yelled at the guy. The Amtrak guy, who seemed pretty nice and quiet at first, responded "It's always you guys who try to start a riot. There's one of you every train. But did you ever notice how it's you big people who eat the most food and then complain when there's none left? You guys always complain, but we can never make you happy, so we've just stopped caring." That shut the big guy up pretty good, though Casey and I could barely keep ourselves from laughing in his face.

Back at our seats, extreme boredom was setting in. It was clear this was going to be a marathon train ride, at least 13 hours. So I came up with the "great" idea of taking Sriram's arm and putting it on Ryan's shoulder, which was hilarious. The two French-Canadians teens sitting next to us appreciated it too.

Then we decided to start acting/singing Disney songs out of sheer boredom. It was a lot of fun and the passengers actually liked it. This one woman gave us sodas and then we went on to some Michael Jackson/Madonna. Yes, we're dorks.

Finally, though, the train ride was over and we were on the Long Island Railroad back home. It was a fun trip, and it barely cost $500 American. Nice deal. Toronto next year!

2285 words?!?!!? That's longer than just about all of my papers at Amherst last year!

P.S. forgot about the German porn. We watched it the second night, when we were all really drunk. Note to self- NEVER WATCH GERMAN PORN, EVEN WHEN YOU'RE DRUNK OUT OF YOUR MIND. IT IS THE MOST DISGUSTING THING EVER. that is all.

should I stay or should I go?

mmoin@optonline.net — Tue, 04 Jun 2002 03:07:18 GMT

Ok, so my internship sort of sucks. The coworkers are nice, the other interns are pretty tolerable, some of the women are very attractive.

Otherwise, however, it sucks. I don't get paid, I have to do like 6 hours of *$*#$ work each day (transcribing tapes, stuffing envelopes, typing up records into spreadsheets), etc. Plus I have to pay about $20 a day including lunch and train tickets, so I'm paying to work basically.

I'm going to get a recommendation and a reference from the Pataki for Governor campaign at the end of the summer, and I could probably reduce to just working a few days a week, but this really sucks- I have to get up at 6:15am and I usually don't get back until about 11-12 hours later (1.5 hour commute each way, basically).

What would you do? Please comment.

an arabic adventure!

mmoin@optonline.net — Sun, 02 Jun 2002 06:01:30 GMT

One of my friends from home and I went into SoHo tonight to see what it's like, since neither of us had seen it before. Supposedly, of course, SoHo is the "hip" place to be, with a ton of clubs, boutiques, etc. It's the place where the "real new yorkers" go, as opposed to the tourist places like Times Square, whatever.

So Sriram and I had dinner at this place in SoHo, and then we're checking out these clubs, and it seems like not much is really going on yet (supposedly the real partying doesn't start until fairly late), so we end up going to none other than Times Square.

Initially, we wanted to go see Undercover Brother, but all the showings were sold out somehow, so we ended up wandering around. At about 9:30, I noticed this newspaper/magazine store, Universal News or something like that. I go in, and there are these two guys behind the counter talking in Arabic.

Somehow, I sort of understand what they're saying. Something about the classes one of the men's kids is taking in school.

So I'm about to buy the arabic-language version of Newsweek, which I'd never even seen before. The guy at the cashier starts ringing up the magazine absent-mindedly, and the other looks really surprised and says, "do you know arabic?" And I respond "I study arabic in college" in Arabic. Both of the guys are clearly shocked. So I say "thanks" in Arabic, and they say "ila liq'a" (a goodbye in Arabic). That ruled.

the male lewinsky, but not at all

mmoin@optonline.net — Sun, 02 Jun 2002 05:55:22 GMT

(Applies to Friday, so I put it there)

So I'm interning for George Pataki's re-election campaign (NY Governor). I work for his daughter, who in addition to being a smart Yale grad is also really cute. Plus, for some reason Republican women are very attractive.

All the women in the office are in their mid 20's, are really well-dressed, smart, and hot. There's this one really cute one who I believe graduated from college this year. She needed printer paper, so I gave her the advice of stealing it from the copier. Then, later on the copier started going crazy, so we took turns insulting it, which I've heard is the office version of flirting. rright. And I guess lending someone a stapler is like having sex.

And those are the main positives of the internship. Otherwise it sort of sucks. I do a lot of menial work for no money and no compensation whatsoever, except for the "Amigos de Pataki" poster I "borrowed" from the lobby. I have to pay for transportation, so it's like I'm actually paying to do this stuff. Well, maybe I will benefit from the "experience."

There's this one intern, he doesn't go to Amherst, who is so ridiculously ambitious it's, ummm, ridiculous. He was shredding documents today, and one of the lower level staffers was like "It's just like Enron in here!" which we all got a good laugh out of. So one of the actual boss people comes in (some older Republican guy, not Emily Pataki), and the intern is like "It's just like Enron in here!" I roll my eyes at no one in particular, the boss loves it! That intern is such a cockmaster.

victory against williams, the week of HELL!

mmoin@optonline.net — Sat, 18 May 2002 02:04:16 GMT

Honestly, every time I wanted to update my LiveJournal in the past month I'd have a rugby game, or I'd be in the hospital with pneumonia (to be explained later). First, the game against hated Williams College (end of April).

Williams was our last opponent of the rugby season, and emotionally the most important. We were playing for our jerseys. Luckily, I thought at the time, Matt (the right wing, I was at left) and I had to switch out for two alums who wanted a chance to play, so we weren't involved in the jersey bet. Both of us thought we were lucky, since the B-side last season had lost to Williams 21-12.

Within about 5 minutes after we started, though, I knew something different was happening. The left wing opposite me sucked. Considering I am a winger with barely a season under his belt, the fact that I am saying that someone sucks means that this kid was really terrible. Their team had no ball movement whatsoever (according to our coach, they'd tried to juice their team up with football players, the only problem being that a lot of them didn't really understand how to play that well).

At one point one of the props (Brad) threw a bad pass and it went past me. I went for it but it took a hard bounce out of bounds. These two seniors thought I should've dove and yelled at me right there on the field. The coach called for a substitutions, and these two guys thought I was being taken out, so they said told me to "get off the field."

As it turned out, two different people were being subbed in, so that shut those guys up.

We went up 7-0 at the half and ended up winning 38-3. It was ridiculous. They basically gave up and just let some of our guys run it in unopposed. Matt and I were really sad at the end, since we didn't get Williams jerseys, but at least we got to keep our own, which the guys on the A-side didn't get to do (they lost earlier that day).

Anyway, I spent the next week or so hanging around and playing video games with guys in the dorm and not studying for my finals. My RA made it even easier to not do work by showing every single Bond movie in his room over a three-day period. Amazing.

This week, however, was one of the toughest weeks of my life.

Monday night I was frantically cramming for my econ final with Rich (fellow rugby player) when all of a sudden I started to go haywire. I started speaking really quickly, breathing really fast. I was really dizzy, I had trouble walking. Half an hour later I was in Cooley Dickinson Hospital (crappy local hospital) with Katie. Three hours later I was discharged- their advice: "take tylenol and advil."

I did exactly that, and somehow I managed to stumble through my econ final on Tuesday. I didn't have any appetite that day though, so all I had were two pieces of bread that Katie and Talia brought back for me from the dining hall. My parents brought me back home that night, though, so I thought I'd be able to recover at home.

That night I was miserable. 102 fever, couldn't eat at all. Somehow I made it through the night.

Wednesday morning was even worse, I could barely walk, I had trouble lifting a water bottle (believe me, it was pathetic). My doctor sent me to the ER at North Shore Hospital. I was hooked up to an IV and pumped with liters of saline solution. My fever rose to 105 Wednesday night, though, but it broke sometime the next morning.

I was finally discharged on Friday afternoon. My fever is gone, I'm no longer contagious, and I'll I have left is a cough and a lowered energy level, which will linger for another week or two. I'm relieved.

Apparently I had had pneumonia since at least the past Monday when I'd been at Cooley Dickinson. Thankfully I went home instead of relying on the treatment prescribed by the doctor there, though (tylenol and advil), otherwise I have no idea where I'd be now.

on the home stretch

mmoin@optonline.net — Sun, 28 Apr 2002 15:37:41 GMT

Yesterday we played Babson College, which has a pretty good rugby team, but they're not really that amazing. A-side lost 21-12 or something, and then B-side lost 15-7. I actually got to play wing on B-side, which was a really big deal for me, since I've always thought I was better over there than up in the scrum at flanker, which is a position I'm really too small for. I didn't play amazingly at wing, but I played well enough that the guys were fairly pleased, since I had never even played at wing before.

At the end of the A-side game against Babson, one of their guys made the mistake of taunting the one person on our team who really can't control himself and a full-scale brawl broke out, well, more like a bunch of Babson guys beating on Richie with our team trying to pull them off. Ugh, to add insult to injury.

Also, I got a black eye for my effort- it doesn't even look really bad, it's more just "proof that I'm a badass." Heh.

Right after the game, one of the guys, Carlos, and his father barbecued sausages and steaks, which was a really cool thing to do. It was pretty awesome having a nice fresh steak right after the game- it felt sort of like being one of those stone age hunters eating the animal he'd just killed. Enhhhhhh, not really, but you know what I mean.

That night was rugby prom, and I made a big mistake by figuring that a lot of guys and girls wouldn't have dates so I wouldn't have to worry about getting one. With about two hours left to go before prom, I went down and asked Catherine (I've mentioned her before in the journal, in the really big entry I did in January) if she wanted to come with me. She was with her sophomore friend, who for some reason thinks I'm some sort of "bad guy", and I felt like an idiot when she said that she already had a date.

So I went there, and upon noticing that I was like the only guy without a date, I felt like even more of an idiot. I stayed for about an hour and drank a little, but then I just left because I felt too weird being there.

So instead I went to see Amelie with Kimmie and Lisa (two people from my floor), which ended up being fairly fun. It's a great movie.

Then James and I ordered wings and just hung around the rest of the night.

So anyway, I have 2 and a half weeks left here, and although I've had fun and feel I've gained something overall from my year here, I'm fairly pleased about vacation being so soon. without a doubt.

blah

mmoin@optonline.net — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 04:39:44 GMT

Friday night James and I went over to Mount Holyoke to this Anime party (oh come on, everyone else on our hall had gone to see Dave Matthews Band and we had nothing to do). Not a lot of people came, but the DJ was dressed as Rikku from Final Fantasy X, and man was she hot. James offered me a dollar to strike up a conversation with her. I did so and she was pretty cool, but nothing really happened. I was really hoping to run into a different Mount Holyoke girl (read more below), but that didn't happen.

We lost to Middlebury 42-25 (A-side) and 28-0 (B-side) last Saturday. I started at B-side flanker again, and I sucked again, but I didn't really make any major screwups, so it's not too bad. I got cleated on my left leg and on my right hand, both of which hurt like hell right now, but I'll be good for our next game (12 days from today against Babson College).

In the past week or so, the Campus Police have gone sort of insane. Someone broke a police car window with a brick so they've been especially police-like (rather than "oh come on guys, if you're going to drink at least don't be toooooooooo loud"-like) lately. Since they'd busted the previous rugby party (last Thursday night) which I luckily did not attend, I figured they'd bust all the Sat. night parties.

They didn't though, and as a result I got the drunkest I had ever been, having at least 11 (after which I lost count) beers/glasses of champagne at the underground frat party at DKE. Then Noel and I went out and got pizza at Antonios. It was a very weird side of college life that I frankly hadn't experienced before, meeting other athletes as one of their "peers" and actually seeing what the underground frats are like (they're banned at Amherst- supposedly if you're caught promoting or recruiting for a frat at Amherst you get suspended).

Oddly enough, I didn't even have a hangover the next morning.

So also there are two sort of new girls around. There's a girl from Mount Holyoke in my Middle Eastern History class who's pretty cute and whom I've talked to a few times, and this rugger on the women's rugby team at Amherst. Who knows what will happen, I mean there is only about a month left in the semester.

Only about 25 classes total remain, along with two rugby games (Babson, Williams), and room draw, where I officially find out I will be living inside a tree, just like that guy in "My Side of the Mountain."

interesting times

mmoin@optonline.net — Thu, 11 Apr 2002 07:01:46 GMT

Starting up where I last left off- Friday night I stayed in because of the game.

Saturday morning I woke up with my knee in pain and resolved that there was just no way in the world I was going to play that day. I ended up running the flags (basically assisting the referee and making the simple calls), which wasn't too bad, since we won that game 34-10. B-side, which I normally play on, ended up losing 15-0, which really really sucked. I doubt I could've made a big difference though. It wasn't really fair anyway because Bowdoin played their A-side against our B-side. Well, we won when it counted. Considering Bowdoin is one of the top teams in Division II, it was a pretty good win.

Afterwards, we held a party for the Bowdoin guys, who despite some rough play were actually pretty cool people. I had a few drinks and spent the rest of that evening pretty buzzed. It was hilarious going to the cafeteria after that. Then that night I got incrementally more drunk at this party called "Stearns Returns" (in Stearns dorm, obviously). The police came to "investigate" the party at about 11pm, though their "investigation" was basically them getting alcohol and drinking with us.

Afterwards, I went to a rugby party and saw a lot of people getting lucky. Not me though, sadly, but the day had been fun enough.

Thankfully, since then my knee has just about healed up- I've gone to the last two practices and I'm almost definitely good for the game against Middlebury. It's going to be a weird game, we usually beat them but this year they're #6 in the nation. Thus it will be tough.

Justin and I ended up getting a pick near the bottom of the freshman class for dorms next year, so we'll probably either get a 3-room triple in Pratt (mediocre), or a 1-room double in the modular housing (craptacular). At least the modular housing has wireless internet access and is about 50 meters from the rugby field. Either way, though, my room next year is going to suck compared with the 2-room double I share with James now.

dude

mmoin@optonline.net — Fri, 05 Apr 2002 22:10:50 GMT

So my knee is pretty fucked up. I'm skipping practice today, and I probably won't play against Bowdoin tomorrow. I keep icing it and taking advil, but it's still pretty bad.

Besides that, I went to a jazz masterclass today with Eddie Daniels (pretty famous jazz guy). It was fairly fun, but I had to go to my voice lesson after like an hour, so I didn't get to perform in front of him with the jazz band.

Otherwise, I don't have too much to say. Life is all right, Justin and I were unable to bribe our way into an upperclassman's room group, so it looks like we'll be living in a "trailer" (temporary housing) next year with 4 other guys. Could be worse. Well, not really, unless we had to pitch tents on the quad and hunt squirrels. That would be worse.

Trinity 10, Amherst 0

mmoin@optonline.net — Sun, 31 Mar 2002 01:47:28 GMT

Could've been worse. I didn't make any spectacular plays, but I'm not the reason for the scores by Trinity, plus I even got to start and play the entire game. There are only 3 flankers on the entire team (including myself), so it looks like I'll be able to play most games this year. It was really a lot of fun, although incredibly scary- I got hit pretty hard a few times.

Well anyway, we're hosting a party for the girls team, which just got back from Wesleyan, so that'll be fun.

what the hell is a flanker?

mmoin@optonline.net — Sat, 30 Mar 2002 05:27:47 GMT

Thus ends "hell week" of rugby. Five days, five marathon rugby practices leading up to the season-opener against Trinity College, and I emerge with merely slight bruises from tackling/being tackled/kicked/etc.

For the most part, the guys on the team are great, except a few who are just really really bothersome for various reasons (a fellow rookie, for instance, who thinks he's some killer rugby player because he played every sport known to man back in high school and yet managed to get cut from four varsity sports here at Amherst).

So for the week I was training at wing, which is a position for a moderately tall, fairly slim, somewhat fast type of guy, but since we have too many back players (of which wing is one) and not enough forwards, I was basically moved to flanker during today's practice. It's not too bad, since it's a fairly good position too, but I'm really just too weak to play it (it's really designed for a larger type of guy). I figure I'm going to look pretty bad out there tomorrow, but I suppose unless I manage to make the winning score for the other team I'll get to stay on the team, so no problems I guess. Hell, I still get to wear the jersey.

Hopefully, I'll manage to play well enough that none of the guys hold it against me.

Honestly, aside from that, I don't have much to say. My week has been pretty good. I got a B+ on my Middle Eastern History paper, which wouldn't be an amazing grade, but the teacher is a really tough grader, so I'm pretty happy about it. The Room Draw forms are in, so I can now pray for the (roughly) 1 in 10 chance of getting a single and the (roughly) 1 in 4 chance of not getting completely screwed and having to live in a 1-room double.

Oh yeah, almost forgot- there are a lot of odd/crazy traditions on the team, but I think I'll save those for a later entry.

Well, I might as well start getting ready to sleep, I have to get to the field relatively early tomorrow morning.

mmoin@optonline.net — Tue, 26 Mar 2002 02:17:23 GMT

Either I am in horrible shape or I'm getting sick. After a really tough rugby practice today I went back to my room and promptly slept two hours. When I woke up I felt really out of it. I'd better get to work though, since I have a 7-page paper due tomorrow.

Anyway, thanks for the im, Emlu. Things are really just day to day. There really are a lot of good people here, I guess it just takes a while.

there and back again

mmoin@optonline.net — Sun, 24 Mar 2002 00:03:06 GMT

Last night I hung out with Ryan, Casey, and Tara, and it was a lot of fun. After going out to eat, we stayed at Tara's house until about 3am and talked about just about everything.

Afterwards, however, I started to feel really depressed- there is a connection I feel with the three of them (and a few other people I've known) that I really don't have with anyone up at school. James is a great roommate, and we have a lot in common, but we're just not that close- he started going out with Katy about a month into the semester and that really distanced him from just about our entire hall. Greg and Mike have their own things going now. I suppose Justin (the guy I'm rooming with next year) is the closest thing I have at Amherst to the kind of friends I've known back home. There are a lot of people at school who are really great people but I just don't know- it's been 3/4ths of a year now at Amherst, and sometimes I feel that I haven't made the kind of friends I've hoped to make.

I'm probably just thinking about it now since I'm going back tomorrow morning, but it's just put me in a bit of a sad mood today. College life isn't tough- far from it- my grades are pretty good, rugby is fun (if a bit intimidating), and there really aren't any exceedingly stressful things going on in my life. I just seem to be nitpicking at the moment.

back at home, or is it "home"?

mmoin@optonline.net — Tue, 19 Mar 2002 06:13:55 GMT

I had foot surgery today. Talk about weird, there's a big bandage around my foot, which I still can't feel because it was anesthetized. Luckily I'll be good as new by Sunday or so, which is good considering I have rugby practice ever day next week leading up to our game on the 30th against Trinity.

The past week or so has been really uneventful. Aside from studying for midterms, I was basically playing video games with James or Justin and avoiding studying for midterms. Thursday night was Katy's (James's girlfriend) birthday, so we all had mixed drinks, courtesy of Katy's bartending expertise, while we watched the NCAA tournament.

Now that I'm back home, I've had the chance to hang out with a few of my close home friends, like Ryan, Pete, Casey, and Tara, which is pretty cool. Sriram is still at Georgia Tech, though, until early May, so I won't see him until then.

Housing here at Amherst can sort of suck sometimes. Since Mike and Greg basically ditched Justin and me to live in a theme house, Justin and I have to go into room draw alone, meaning that instead of having a shot at a fairly nice three-room triple or even a four-room suite, we'll end up with a crappy one-room double or something in the temporary housing while Amherst builds the new dorms. Oh well, at least there'll be another 98 or so screwed sophomores in the temporary housing next year, so we can all enjoy the "trailers" together.

I return to Amherst next Sunday afternoon.

mmoin@optonline.net — Sat, 09 Mar 2002 08:45:35 GMT

I went to my first rugby party tonight. I must say, it's just like a frat in almost every way imaginable, although luckily I was not subjected to any sort of weirdinitiation, though I did play my first round of beirut, ever! craziness!

There are a lot of great guys on the team, I almost feel like a fake, since I'm really not much of an athlete, but we'll see how things work out. At the moment, I'm on JV and will get to play against trinity college on the 30th. sounds like fun.

more ups and downs

mmoin@optonline.net — Thu, 07 Mar 2002 06:37:29 GMT

From my Amherst plan (this webjournal thing we have there that's sort of only for Amherst students). I'm exhausted and sickish so I'm a bit lazy. Here it is:

I'm feeling a little under the weather.

My mood has seemed to follow that. I'm just feeling really crappy right now. Have you ever found just about anything really annoying, whether it's the same song playing over and over again in someone's room to some conversation that's going on somewhere else? I think my current state has managed to paint everything that's going on around me in that way. Even as there are many things to be happy about they just seem to be overshadowed by crappy things.

But then something always happens to turn the tables yet again. I remember a year and a half ago being in one of the most depressing periods of my life. A girl I had a crush on had turned me down, I'd become increasingly alienated from a lot of my friends (some of them were more like "friends") for many reasons- (their) drinking being a major one- and I just felt pretty horrible about myself. But then within 3 months everything had changed yet again, and life was almost the complete opposite. I suppose it's hard to see the top when you're on the bottom, and hard to see the bottom when you're on top.

I got a haircut today. It's really short.

talk about random

mmoin@optonline.net — Mon, 04 Mar 2002 05:10:49 GMT

So I joined the Amherst rugby team. First practice was today- I got sort of beaten up, but it was fun. It'll definitely get me in shape. I'm still pretty exhausted now, and practice ended almost an hour and a half ago. It's pretty cool for many reasons, one of which is that I can now be a pretend jock even though I'm still weak and unathletic. The guys are cool too- one of them who I know from one of my classes is basically showing me the ropes.

The coach guy is hilarious- whenever someone does something wrong he makes the entire team do a few pushups. It's hard not to laugh when he gets angry. He's a pretty good guy, even though he's really tough. Sort of reminds me of Happy Gilmore's coach in the movie (you know, the guy whose hand was bitten off by an alligator).

the week in review

mmoin@optonline.net — Sun, 03 Mar 2002 07:32:21 GMT

Man, have I got a lot of stuff to say. I got a bunch of tests/papers back last monday. My grades are fairly good, B-range in history of the middle east, A in arabic, A probably in vocal performance, B-ish in econ. I can live with those.

Next thing- Greg, Mike, Danny, and I were going to do this whole dance act for the competition to get the best rooms for next year- basically you do an act and if you do well enough, you get first pick of rooms in Room Draw. Then last Tuesday I found out that the three of them had signed up to live in Marsh House (the arts theme dorm, it's pretty far off-campus, but it's really nice) and it was too late for me to sign up- the deadline was that night.

So basically it totally sucked. I knew that Danny didn't do it consciously, he'd been planning on applying for Marsh house for a long while, but I really got the feeling that Mike and Greg were basically just ditching me. I confronted them about it, and neither of them gave me a real answer.

I don't really understand what's happened with Greg, Mike, and I over the past few months- we used to be really good friends. When Greg and I first got to Amherst we were both sort of dealing with ended relationships, plus we were both a bit nervous about college and we became pretty close pretty quickly, and Mike and I became friends pretty quickly too.

Then Mike and Greg started becoming really close since they have like all the same classes together (both are probably going to go pre-med) and I think I sort of just got shut out. Also, Mike, Greg, and I all auditioned for the same a cappella group- Mike really only auditioned because I convinced him to. The group ended up only taking Mike because they only needed people in his voice part, so Greg and I weren't even considered or anything. There was just a little bitterness because the only reason Mike even auditioned was me, plus some of the guys in the group were sort of assholes about the entire process.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Justin (another friend of mine from my hall) and I are probably going to room together with some other guys.

Anyway, then on Wednesday the Jazz band rehearsed for our gig at the Amherst senior center next friday- we're actually getting paid, which is pretty cool. Also, I'm performing in the recital hall later that afternoon for a classical vocal recital. It's going to be a fun/scary day.

Thursday night Poornima and I went to see "Kandahar" in Northampton. It was pretty cool to hang out, even if the movie wasn't so great.

Anyway, tonight was Thierry's birthday- he's now a 21 year old freshman and five of his friends came down from Quebec to throw a party for him. He's an interesting guy- he took two years off before college to learn english (he was recruited by amherst for hockey, but he's pretty smart too). It was really pretty hilarious- he got up and announced to our hall that he'll get alcohol for us, but only on weekends, and that there's no drinking allowed during exam week, and that he'd make sure we weren't drinking too much. Then I said, "thanks dad."

So then Greg, Mike, a few other people and I drank together and Greg and Mike went to a party together and I just stayed back with Talia, James (my roommate), and Katie (James's girlfriend). I just got the feeling that Greg and Mike weren't too eager to have me around with them- I really don't know what happened. Oh well.

Those homeless guys took my money!

mmoin@optonline.net — Sun, 24 Feb 2002 07:51:15 GMT

That was exactly what I was left thinking after I proved to myself yet again that I have no gambling ability. Luckily one could only bet money and not, say, clothing, otherwise I would be naked in addition to broke. Explanation- Casino was last night, they raised something like $100,000 for charity last year, and probably around that much this year, of which about $40 came from me.

Elsa came to see the a cappella concert (which was just enh) with me friday night. Okay, I definitely am not going to go out with her, there's just no chemistry whatsoever.

Adrienne and I are actually becoming pretty friendly. We ate dinner together, and she's just a really really good person.

Got new turntables on Friday. Amazing. I feel guilty listening to mp3's and cd's now.

Oh god- so in Valentine (cafeteria) tonight at dinner, a bunch of drunk guys from one of the underground frats (frats are technically banned at Amherst) sneaked in through the emergency exit with a bag full of cans of natural light and plastic cups and set up a beirut tournament in honor of some kid's birthday. It was arguably the funniest thing ever, especially because it turned out they had an "insider" (some kid who works in the cafeteria) shut off the alarm on the door so they could sneak the beer in. classic.

tons of stuff

mmoin@optonline.net — Fri, 22 Feb 2002 04:35:32 GMT

So I just got off the phone with two sophomore girls calling to argue with me about my opinion piece in The Amherst Student (you can read it here). I actually managed to convince one of them enough that she said, "well, I sort of agree with you." And both of them were even in the production of "The Vagina Monologues" here at Amherst.

Not all of the people who read the column wanted to talk to me, though. One girl posted online that I'm a "naive and scared man" and has started a letter-writing campaign to the Student against me. Fun stuff.

Anyway, I saw the Zumbyes (an a cappella group) tonight- they were really quite good. I'm going to see Route 9 (which my friend Mike is in) tomorrow night, most likely with Elsa. The funny thing, though, is that Adrienne just im'ed me before and said,

"hey .... if you're going to route 9 save me a seat ... I'm probably going"

funny stuff. that could be funny and embarassing. she signed off right after, so I couldn't even really respond. haha.

Anyway, it was a pretty fun and chaotic day.

fuck fuck fuck

mmoin@optonline.net — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 04:27:32 GMT

So basically, two weeks ago I gave up a guaranteed relationship to have a chance with her. And then I found out.

Adrienne just started going out with someone from her dorm...three days ago. Highlight of our conversation:

me: this of course would be the point when i could try to escape with a minimum amount of dignity
me: i waive that right