so, today was the game against the number three football team i the nation: u$c.
the game started with a call time of seven thirty in the morning, starting with a donut breakfast until eight, rehearsal until nine thirty, some downtime, lunch at twelve fifteen, sproul photos at one forty-five, march up soon following, and then the game at three thirty.
after the fourth quarter, the score was tied, twenty-four all, california and u$c.
first overtime: i was crapping my pants since the first field goal was blocked. luckily, we intercepted, and pretty much made them a run for their copious amounts of money, those bitches.
second overtime: move to the north endzone. both teams get touchdowns. the fist thing running through our heads once u$c scores:
FUCK.
third overtime: u$c attempts a field goal, but no dice. the cal student section was the loudest i have ever heard it, even louder than the ucla game or even the stanfurd game of last year. the alumni were all standing up, all of the u$c rooting section was up on their feet anticipating what was going to happen.
then they kicked their field goal attempt, and got nothing.
then it was our turn.
first down, nothing. the team was a little lackluster giving the ball to adimchinobe echimandu and gaining five yards. come second down, we gained a yard from echimandu's run, forcing us to put our special teams in.
and then, in the most glorious victory i have ever seen the california football team ever pull off, tyler fredrickson kicks the most perfect arc through the south goalposts, and we beat the university of southern california, thirty-four to thirty-one.
i was ecstatic. i still am ecstatic. and i have a good feeling that i will be more than a bit on the upside until a few days from now. i mean, who else can say that we beat the number three team in the nation? and sure, we're not ranked, but we're not paying fifty thousand a year for a top-notch education -- i mean, we
are the number one public university in the nation, take that, assholes -- we get by with our own merit, with our own paltry funds, with our own awesome heart and determimntation to undermine the most ridiculous and unnecessary display of cockiness this universe has ever seen.
who calls their band the "greatest band in the history of the universe? not us.
who thinks their football team is the most amazing gift from god? not us.
who knows that their football program is at most, mediocre, until they realize legacies don't work? not us.
who believes that they are the best people in the world because of all the money they have? definitely not us.
u$c does. three times the money, one-third the education. and don't even try to come back with "you get what you pay for," because really, who's to say that your school has any merit. (it doesn't.) there's a lot of talk and a lot of shit going around, but in the end, you have nothing to deliver. maybe like a "reputation," but ask any other school out there and they'll surely say that you guys are assholes.
who wants that reputation, to be known as assholes? not us.
u$c does.
boys and girls, i am floating on cloud nine.
we won, and u$c didn't. we broke their eleven-game win streak that started with us last year (let's say that it's revenge). they deserved to lose. and no, i'm not biased, since they probably have no opinion about things that matter, anywhere from prop fifty-four to the entire governorship to the situation of troops in the iraqi line.
goes to show what happens when you end up going to school smack in the middle of south central.
to all of my u$c consorts: sorry you sucked this weekend, but...
you deserved it. i still love you, but you did.
go bears.
god, i'm tired.
i've spent the past two days spending each and every minute outside of class doing one of three things: the
hardboiled issue that i did all the layout for, coming out on monday (if you want the .pdf file, ask me and i can probably deliver -- do note that it's twenty-four megs and it's amazing), working on class material, such as papers, homework, and mundane repetitive rote learning mechanisms employed by my professors and graduate student instructors, or i'm off in another world doing band things, whether or not they're ridiculously important at the time.
notice how that partitions no time for neither myself nor for other people.
i kinda really miss the everyday stuff, the three square meals, the not-having-to-worry-about-the-little-things, being with a few people. it's been a hellish two weeks, and i've slept no more than six hours total for the past few days. counting it up, it's about fifteen for the week so far, and the football game against u$c is tomorrow.
the agenda goes something like get there on the field at seven thirty in the morning, which entails getting up at around six or so, and then rehearsing for about an hour or two depending on what needs to get worked, and then "downtime" (i'm assuming the person whoever called it that was either very depressed or was on the way to being depressed) for an hour, take the sproul picture, march up, play the game, finish the game, break-off and play for the frats and a few establishments, finish sending my paper to wherever it needs to get sent, and all this brouhaha.
i am not going to get much sleep tonight, folks. that paper needs to get finished, and it's going to be the fourth time this week that i will have been up past four in the morning.
it's kinda crazy when dawn starts happening. i woke up once and it was only five, and i couldn't get myself to fall back to sleep, so i watched the sun rise through my window.
then my eyes really hurt for staring at the sun. that's why you never ever do that, because the sun hitting your eyes is a very very very bad tihng.
i wanted to see a few movies out today. but no. i got owned.
i wanted to see a few people today whom i don't regularly get to see anymore. but no. i got owned.
i ftp-ed the file to the publisher today, which i guess makes up for it. but until the tangible paper copies of the magazine come out on monday, i'll be just a bit snappy, unnerved, and frazzled. this weekend isn't a weekend; it's the start of another cycle of madness that everyone's lulled into and can't seem to get out of, now that they're in it for some semblance of the long run.
my feet hurt, my knees ache. i feel like a broken toy.
and kudos to the women's volleyball team for kicking ass. that was an awesome win over u-dub, and i'm glad we were there for it. they seemed to really appreciate our supporting them during the game. i know for sure one of the girls really liked our rendition of "fat bottomed girls" since she was singing and pointing to the other team while we jammed on.
i hope i get to relax sometime soon, just take it all in and let it wash over me instead of letting it all flood over and drown me. i need a smoke (i know i shouldn't, but fuck you anyway for judging me right then), or i need to get high, or i need to get drunk with someone else and just let go because nothing's let up.
i am so tired, but i can't go to sleep.
so tired...
this is starting to get ridiculous when i can't even talk to my roommate face-to-face.
is being passive-aggressive such a good thing? i can't just run away, now, can i?
although, i must admit, chicago was more than a blast. there was me getting sick and getting knocked out by the nyquil, but all in all, a very good trip. the people were hospitable, the weather was amazingly nice (albeit dry at some points(, and the city was gorgeous. i love urban areas.
and the last week? as if it didn't happen? of course not. it lingers, you know. it kinda smacks at you with that nasty aftertaste, like after getting punched in the mouth and tasting all that iron-saltiness from your blood.
i am so tired. and i have no more energy.
this might be my last semester at cal, folks. might be. depends on how two weeks from now goes.
and as far as being in a relationship goes, it has its ups and its downs. mostly it's the downtime, but i really really love it when i have the uptime. because there's no ceiling there, there's just nice happy expanse that i can go to. but once it's over, i realize i have to crash back down to reality, and take a nasty fall once i do. and when it happens, when i feel that stinging bruise from the aftermath, it's a mindfuck.
i try to play it off as me being cheeky, or peppy, or unusually happy all the time. i don't want a lot of people knowing that i'm not quite the optimist everyone knows me to be.
i can't escape this, especially now.
i really wish i had something more to say, but my passive-aggressiveness keeps me from doing so because i'm too nice. and hell, once you read this, you'll pretty much have the idea of why i'm so frustrated all over again. it's fucking annoying. and i can't do a damn thing about it.
sooner or later, something has to give. and it's already given, and i'm just waiting for the most opportune moment for it to just all boil over and give me second-degree burns and blisters everywhere.
battle scars are gonna be all over me by the end of this month, i assure you that much.
i really do need to talk to you, though. y'all know who you are.
plane to illinois in t-minus two hours and fifteen minutes.
ever wonder why chicago-o'hare airport's call letters are ORD? and somehow, it's the busiest airport, even busier than kennedy international in new york or the tom bradley in los angeles.
i'm running on caffeine.
wish us luck, wish me fun, and wish me not to go too crazy in the greater urbana-champaign area.
i guess what i'm really trying to say is...
i'm going to chicago, and you're not. go bears. i love you.
i'm going to be in chicago over the weekend. expect a nothing from me when i get back, because boy, this week sucks.
all your nicknames are done.
craziness still ensues.
boom.
i'm the butt of life's joke.
since the non-sleep, i've felt ridiculously tired. but i decided against sleep and instead saw 'chicago' with shereen, hiro and liz. it was good, for three dollars. and i got to see shereen again, which was really nice, for not having seen her for a long time. i got back to the apartment and crashed.
about ten hours later i woke up, still feeling tired, still feeling pukey. (i don't know what it is, maybe some type of flu thing, maybe it's just my system trying to get rid of all the funk and grossness from two nights before.) then we had phonez-bones bonding, one of the greatest things we've ever organized. i won't forget the image of renie reading 'best women's erotica' with a giant centerfold in the back, nor kaeli readily (and masterfully!) grabbing rian's crotch, nor daniel and wolfman dancing together. it was a good night. and i got back to the apartment and crashed.
i woke up the next afternoon
really pukey. i met up with my brother, which was cool -- you'd think, for someone who's family, i'd see him more often than most of my friends. but no. it was cool. and i got back to the apartment and crashed.
monday morning happened, and as i was prepping myself mentally to go to school at eight in the morning, i realized that my stomach felt like it was at my throat, just one step out of the vomiting circle. every time i took another step, i was afraid all the contents of my throat-stomach would burst forth. so i decided to not go, and instead, wait it out until class happened again at one. but then, one o'clock came around, and i still felt like shit, so i got back to the apartment and crashed.
and after having an awesome time with becca, rian, sam, and a good rest of the band at the giants v padres game, i got back to the apartment, saw that a voicemail was left for me on my phone, called my brother, and found out that my grandmother has cancer.
shock, utter disbelief. yup. it was cancer of the thyroid, he said, and it had already spread to her lungs. i called my brother back immediately.
"how long do they give her?"
"i dunno."
"when'd they find out?"
"i dunno."
"are you going back anytime soon?"
"tuesday afternoon."
silence.
"i'll see you when you get back, then."
"all right."
in the midst of it all, i could handle the pukey feeling, i could handle the overwhelming courseload, i could handle the essay that was due while i was nigh-vomiting, i could handle the hookah and the pot and the alcohol on thursday night, i could handle the giant hotdog and the garlic fries from the ballpark and i didn't upchuck thank you very much, i could handle the financial crap that's going on, and i could most definitely handle the last month when everything went awry for a few days. but i couldn't handle hearing from a third party, for the second time now, that someone near and dear to me is dying.
i don't know, maybe it's just me being overreactive and this whole thing's acting synergistically with the rest of the shit going on. simple as that. i don't know.
and tonight, i hope to get back to the apartment and crash. and maybe burn a little, too.
i'm teetering and blurring the line between delirium and marked confusion.
i haven't slept in two days.
i'm overwhelmed, and as is with any overwhelming case, something has to give.
and in my insomnia last night, i realized one thing: i don't care anymore.
so if anyone has bullshit to bring up, bring it on. it won't stand a chance.
if your name's noli, i need to talk to you. if not, say hi anyway. it'll probably make me feel better.
and lastly: i hate it when things pile on top of each other, and when people don't know when to shut up.
go bears. hit it.
it's that time of year again... we would always wonder what the most interesting holiday in september would be, since every other month had something attached to it. january had new year's day, june had father's day, october had halloween, november had thanksgiving. and now, september has september eleventh -- an event not really acknowledged for its reverence; much more, like its shock value, actually -- not exactly the most festive of holidays. you don't see people going around holding september eleventh sales or selling september eleventh bears or something.
it was only a month after i had gotten back from my wonderful time in new york that the disaster happened. i vividly remember waking up and turning on the television set, when all of a sudden, the first image i see is the second plane hitting the second tower. it all seemed to crazy to be true; like we were all in a movie set or something. the day felt rushed. a nice handful of people didn't go to class. and when i came back, a few emails from my friends in new york had stormed my mailbox.
it was like getting punched in the gut, seeing those words: "robyn was working cantor fitzgerald."
now, two years later, it's a bit ironic to be mourning two losses in the span of a month and a half in such a solemn day. i feel like there should be something we can do, something, anything, that would give us a chance to bring them back. but we can't, and the only things we will ever have to work with are pictures, memories, and questions, mostly why, sometimes when.
wherever they may be, liam and robyn, i feel, are with us whenever we talk about things like this, or whenever i'm feeling upset or down. i could always count on both of them to make me feel better.
to america, you'll get over it.
to my friends, i know what you're going through, because i'm going through it right now.
rest in peace, liam and robyn. rest in peace.
it's only the third week of school, and it's already crunch time.
i've missed about three classes, slept in this past sunday until, veritably, four o'clock in the afternoon, missed a wonderfully awesome rent deadline, stressed out about my financial situaiton, watched a few webcasts, neglected lab work, been drunk more than a few instances over the week, and it's getting to be stressful. stressful. annoyingly, painstakingly, obviously, stressful.
i'm just glad i'm not so burnt out yet. once i kick all of my classes' asses this semester (and let's say I WILL), i will be declared and ready to go.
speaking of being ready to go, there has been a persistent nag for me to move out of my current living situation into something more enjoyable. i really don't want to leave my roommate on a whim -- but it's out of necessity, out of having to and not wanting to. (there is a difference, you know.) and it seems as if i might just end up living in the environs of berkeley, or in oakland or maybe even richmond. as long as i'm in the bay area, and i can commute to campus, i will be just fine.
and we're talking moving at the end of fall semester, y'all. and that means soon.
sigh. leave it to the fall semester to signal the suckness.
the final score for the california golden bears versus the southern mississippi golden eagles: thirty-four to two. the game was more than exciting and more than an amazing feat performed by the football team; it was the culmination of weeks of anticipation and the purging of so many emotions felt by the general student body. i'm sure i wasn't the only one feeling antsy about this game -- the entire student section was ready.
and more importantly, i could never have been prouder of being a bandsman.
the newmen this year are so lucky to have been blessed with such good tidings: ftp was a blast, the game was a magnificent win, no horrendously intimidating bass players, no gak, having an unusually large newman class -- i can go on for a bit. but the most important thing now is that they are part of something much bigger than they would ever have anticipated. joining this organization means so much (to the point of life-changing, i would even say).
hearing the campanile toll "sons of california" sent chills up and down my spine, reminding me of this time last year when we had all scrambled from the game to get ready for silent walk. i felt ridiculously overdressed, cold, and more than a bit overwhelmed. it was a change when everyone experienced the win over baylor university. it was a change when policies had changed from those of years before. and in the end, everyone grew into whatever space we were given, comfortably, and we all appreciated it in the end.
the campanile tolled "hail to california" and "stanford jonah" afterwards, reminding all of us in that alcove of stephens hall of our newman year, of our silent walk, of how we love this university and how we follow those charges and challenges given to us by the organization. the band is a completely different experience from that of high school: you hear a delighted "wow" instead of a disappointed "oh" whenever you tell anyone you're in the band, and there's a high level of respect from peers and faculty just by that fact. it feels amazing to be appreciated in this university, to hear "cal band great" after a performance in front of seventy thousand people in memorial stadium in any given game day.
"all hail" capped off the tolling of the campanile, signalling that the newmen have just been given another charge. we then stood up, the rest of the director's assistants and i, as well as the musical activities committee, and sang "toast to california" as the newmen arrived at another station of silent walk. the sound of our voices in harmony sounded, from where i was standing, simply inspiring.
the reverence of silent walk continued as we walked into memorial stadium, the score beaming the wondrous victory of the afternoon. the oldmen all lined up for the pinning ceremony, and for the newmen to receive their final charge. it felt great seeing their faces morph into smiles and misty eyes, hearing them talk about the rush of pregame and the butterflies for halftime, and reliving the overwhelming sensation of hearing a crowd of peers yelling and applauding for their first performance of the season.
up in the hall of fame room, for as long as it lasted, the newmen pretty much took everything the oldmen had worked towards for granted. they all seemed confused as to why all of us were amazed that no one overshot the wedge in pregame, or how easy it seemed for the team to garner a win (granted, i felt like that last year, but it's still taking a little getting used to). at the end of the day, as many people have already put it, silent walk is taking those charges and fulfilling them, whether or not the score on the board reads a win for the bears. fact of the matter is, there is a score, and we do whatever it takes to keep spirits up and morale high.
once a cal bandsman, always a cal bandsman.
to the newmen: welcome, officially, to the university of california band. we entreat that you take on these charges we give you: to serve the university with all of your heart, to remember who you are and what you represent for you are now a proud custodian of the california spirit, to meet and surpass the standards set by your predecessors, to carry the california spirit with you always and to impart it to others, and to perform to the best of your ability at all times. you've all done an amazing job, and we are more than proud and happy to call you fellow custodians of the california spirit.
a day has now passed, everyone recuperating from the rush and the hullaballoo of the first week of class and the first game, despite some of the more unfortunate incidences of the past two weeks. it's been a good burn so far. i just hope it doesn't turn into a burn-out.
go bears. that's all i need to say. it explains everything i'm feeling this week.
go bears.
