Sunday, November 28, 2010

I Remember who I was

All in all this was a pretty great Thanksgiving weekend...starting from Wednesday Night.

For the first time in a long time I decided to take it back to high school and hang out with some friends from back in the day. I guess I had forgotten that people actually "come home" for Thanksgiving break since I was used to "home" being Ann Arbor. I have to admit that at first I was pretty bummed about not being back in AA for dinner at the Petosk household. But what I had noticed is that this idea of longing or missing things from AA had become a theme in my life and pretty much keeping me from moving on. So in order to counter that, I decided that a trip down High School lane, perhaps to reconnect with some old friends and make new ones, was  exactly what I needed to make my transition into Baltimore life a little easier.

So on Wednesday night I hung out with my old best bud Greg, and then my old friend Jerry and his Girlfriend Lindsay. We were later joined by a couple of old Loch Raven people that I'm not really friends with but still cool with so it was a good night. We each got a six pack and switched beers around, so it was a bootleg version of find the beer ha. Also we played 21 cup beer pong which is very fun. It's pretty much Civil War, without the violence and with more cups. It was weird for me to see that pretty much all of my good friends from back in the day are wifed up pretty seriously, it just means that the boys night out nights will not quite be the same.

Thursday was your typical Turkey day, stayed in and watched football all day while my mom made an amazing dinner. No one wanted to go out Thursday night so we just stayed in playing some Black Ops.

Friday was pretty much the same scenario. We had  bball practice then I went to visit Greg and see his new gf. She's pretty cute and they look like they're a good couple. I plan on visiting him up at his school he teaches at sometime in the next month or two. Friday evening we rediscovered Zombies in Black Ops. Now we're all hooked again since Stowemoney is in love with it. I guess I forgot to mention that Chris came to visit and has been here for a week. He's just as crazy and funny and awesome as usual, the funniest part being that he has missed a good number of fads that came to America because he was in Korea for the last couple of years. The last "dance" he remembered was  Soulja Boy ha ha.

Last night was interesting. All day we again played Zombies and just hung out hoping for  an Gayhio State Upset but unfortunately UM blew it again. Around 8pm we headed into the city for what I thought would be a crazy last night out for Stowe. It started pretty good, an acquaintance and I ran the beer pong table and each were award 4 free drinks at the bar, a reward I have yet to capitalize on. Around 11 everyone decided to head out but I stayed back and waited for 45 and her entourage to arrive. When she finally got there it was just her and one other person, and sadly enough I was losing my buzz. We decided to head straight for the bars to catch up with everyone except that her friend wasn't 21....I wasn't too happy that she came downtown without an ID or plan but we went with it...fail. She tried to use 45's ID to get in and the first bar saw right through it and took the ID. Now I was left with an underage girl and an ID less 45. So i decided to be the nice guy and stay with them, believing that we would just be able to find something else to do...fail again. The friend spent the rest of the night complaining and preemptively planning her March 21st birthday. Moral of the story, we went back to their house and by the time we got there I was sober and bored and a little annoyed so I just went to bed. Official bedtime for last night, 12:45....Yeah not quite what I had in mind at the beginning of the night but oh well. I just discovered that while some people have the ability to salvage a night after a misstep (1502) others lack in the same area.

What did I learn from this weekend....
1.) Cassie is still just as crazy as ever ha
2.) Some high school friends are worth keeping around
3.) Just because you like a girl doesn't mean you'll like her friends
4.) Black Ops Zombies is addicting and fun
5.) Ricks is really the only bar you can go to everyday and somehow still have fun


Here's to everyone coming home from school again in like 3 weeks.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Baby I've Got a Plan....Runaway as Fast as You Can

So I've been thinking about this whole theme thing, and I agree themes are nice, and they help to keep things spontaneous, entertaining, and most of all fun. To me themes are kinda like goals, you want to make them but you also want to keep them relatively small, as to not try to over extend yourself. I've always been a fan of changing things up, so I asked myself how could I apply this to a theme? Then I looked at my current situation and also asked myself, what kind of changes would I like?... after much deliberation I came up with what I think is a good theme for December....New Leaf December.

What does this mean? Allow me to explain.

My idea is pretty simple, every week or maybe even every other week, we have something new that we are trying to accomplish. For example, I'm a big advocate for New Friend Friday...in which our goal is to simply not just meet someone new, but meet someone new with the idea of gaining a new friend...something that I need these days ha.

Then there was New Taste Thursdays....a day where you can try something new in the food or drink category....Never had Indian or Ethiopian, give it a try...A wine you always walk by but still haven't tried...give it a taste....or maybe its a drink you always see girls sipping but you wonder if you'd like...This is the day to do it. Also New Taste can be Tuesday also, I just like alliteration so it doesn't really matter which day you choose. I understand that circumstances don't always allow for this kind of thing to happen every week, so I say at least twice in the month of December we try to apply this theme, and then we blog about it of course. Thus far I haven't really thought of any other themes for other days but I just wanted to share my basic idea.

Some other possible thoughts I had were New Move Mondays...yes where we try a new dance or one that we've always wanted to learn. So far I haven't really put any thoughts into the weekend, but I'd like to think that the themes would make more sense in a going out type environment since it is the weekend. Let me know your guys' thoughts.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Everybody Dies But Not Everybody Lives

Pink Friday leaked, or dropped today, I'm pretty satisfied I must admit. In the absence of Lil Wayne I've grown pretty fond of Nicki Minaj and recommend the listen, if not the download, to everyone out there.

Today is the first day where I'm in charge of conditioning, I spent all night laying in bed wondering what I'm going to do with them...should I make it unbearable type conditioning in which they will hate me? Or should I take the "this is only going to make you stronger route" Ah who knows, basketball conditioning usually consists of suicides, which I think are not that difficult and outplayed so maybe I'll just get creative. Creativity, what a nice concept.

So earlier I mentioned "shopping around" What I meant by that was not necessarily girls but friends. Right now the only females in my life are my mom and 45...So from that standpoint I would love to add a couple of more friends in the mix because having girls around never hurts and I like to have a girl's opinion on things. So the other night I was out and very drunk and very bored, I reconnected with an old friend from high school, she told me we should "catch up." Usually when people say that to me I ignore them but in this case I think I might try to reconnect. Why? Well first of all I did a little facebook "searching" and saw that she seems to have a nice group of NEW (meaning not highschool) friends that she hangs out with on a regular. So that seems like a good opportunity to meet some new and hopefully interesting people. Secondly, I really am just bored seeing the same people now so in the very least one night out with someone new should at least sate my appetite for a little bit. And lastly, I always had kind of a baby crush on this girl, the first partial asian I ever liked ha. That was for Chin. So neways I'm thinking I'll give her a call thursday to set up some weekend plans. On a side note, Chin commented on how he thinks that at times he's a little OD with girls rewriting messages and overthinking situations, I agree but I think that even though most guys won't admit it, that's something that we all tend to do. There was once a "guy code" that dictated how long you had to wait to call a girl back and stuff like that. Personally I've suffered both fates. Being overly enthusiastic when I met a girl and annoying her to the point where she wanted nothing to do with me. And conversely being too laid back until she lost interest. My solution...if you want to see a girl make it obvious to her, texting is always a good choice as long as you don't draw them out but you get right to the point. If she doesn't respond, don't fret, more and more people are busy and forget to write back or something like that. Wait a day, shoot another text. If you still don't get a response then cut off instigation, and after a week if you don't hear back from her than she's not that interested. The worst case scenario is me and hairflip girl who "seems" to be really excited to hang out and what not, but then when it comes down to making concrete plans, does the best disappearing "I wasn't around my phone" act I've maybe ever seen. Moral of the story, don't hang yourself out there to dry, and like I tell all my buddies in COD...Don't Chase...Well maybe not so applicable in this case but definitely don't Over Pursue.

Here's to making kids run until they break, and then saying One More

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Made

Well lets see where are we now? Currently heading into the second day of Basketball tryouts and while the turnout is much less than I expected, at least the kids recognize a change in the old ways of doing things and have shown up with a desire to do great.

Having a conversation with my dad and lil bro last night, mainly about his college visits and choices, my dad and I agreed on one thing, which doesn't happen often. We both agreed that Greatness is not something that you are born with (except in special and rare cases like Lebron James) but rather it is something that you are Always Working Towards. Simply put, its more of a motiviation, to be great, and not something that you should really already consider of yourself. After all, if you are already there, whats the motivation for you to move forward? Thats just a little wisdom that we shared together which was nice, especially since it's something that I'm telling the kids that I'm coaching for both basketball and track.

Similarly, I started looking into programs for school where I can maybe have a grad assistant coaching opportunity. I mean at this point I've always felt like I would want to coach as a hobby or part-time thing, so if its a way for me to get into school to and have help paying for it then why not seize the opportunity presented to me. Like I posted a long time ago, opportunity is something that comes every once in awhile, and when we miss it, its often we are left regretting and wishing we had acted differently. Another word to the wise from last night's conversation....Life doesn't slow down for anyone. In today's age where you see more people dieing of crazy things and at all ages (two kids who recently graduated from my high school recently died) we have to remember to take advantage of our situations and not spend our time idly.

Ok thats the serious type stuff for the post, the other thing I wanted to talk about was 45 and I guess on the same note me and relationships in general. Eh I mean to give a brief background, this past weekend I hung out with 45 and her friends and while yes they are attractive, I have recently learned that they're not terribly fun. Sure I have been spoiled by 1502 and UM...but there comes a time when we should not have to settle for mediocre times, I mean if I'm making the effort to go out and hang out with people the least I could do is have fun right? Im sure you're wondering, what's wrong with them, why aren't they fun? Well I don't know exactly. I mean its not that they specifically aren't fun its just that the things they like to do I don't consider that fun. There's something to be said about the randomness and spontaneous acts of 1502 that always kept us on our toes and kept things exciting. Even though we often went to the same places (Rick's and Charlies) we still managed to make each experience there unique and build stories from them. With the people I hang out with now, not so much ha. I guess the best way to put it into words, even though it doesn't really do my state any real justice, is that I'm just bored. I'm tired of the redbull vodkas, I'm tired of the sub par dancing and lack of anything interesting on the dance floor, I'm tired of seeing people ruin the dougie, haha seriously just dont do it if you are going to murder it ha. I'm all for having fun and not caring what you look like, BUT when people actually BELIEVE they know what they're doing, its the worst.

"These are the people we have picked to be with" in the case of 45, she's all about these kind of nights, and I mean I can't really blame her. When things aren't going so well she can run off with her girls and get guys to buy them drinks, flirt it up for a bit, and then come back to me knowing I'm waiting. On the flip side, I can't really abandon her or her friends to dance with what I consider much more fun people or better looking girls, because at the end of the day thats an argument waiting to happen. Double Standard? Perhaps, but too many times I've been judged and "monitored" by friends and it never ever ends well. I guess I have put myself in this situation. I'm in this pseudo boyfriend type stage that allows me to go days without talking to her and I guess do whatever I want, but then when I'm with her I'm expected to stay by her side or let her go for a bit to get some drinks and attention. Oddly enough I don't get jealous when she does that stuff, I could care less, what that says is either I'm finally not a  jealous person...or more accurately I just don't like her enough to care. Where does this all leave me, a question that I ask almost every post ha, well the same place as I started. You know how usually when you spend more and more time with someone you tend to have feelings that grow? Well for me thats not the case. I don't want to say that I necessarily like 45 less as time goes on, which has happened in the past, but things aren't going really forward, meaning they're staying the same.

What's the soultion...Meet new people. It's my solution to everything ha. Basically I still need to find a decent group of people to go out with, and then also maybe shop around and see what's out there. I'm in no hurry to find 46 but it wouldn't hurt to run some checks and balances....eh probably not the right choice of words but oh well.


Off to pracitce, where I get to make these kids do whatever I want and have them believe I know what I'm talking about...which I eventually will know ha.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

More about Nothing

There is no real way to sum up my amazing weekend in Ann Arbor. I mean honestly I did everything I could have possibly wanted to, saw almost everyone and drank my senses away. As great as my weekend was there, I must admit I am not really in a hurry to return. Don't get me wrong, Hotel Arch is a home away from home, but outside of the confines of the hotel and my presidential suite in the basement, Ann Arbor, or rather the University Lifestyle, has lost a bit of it's luster. I understand that with each new class there are new people, new ideas, and new ways of experiencing college, I'm just saying that from my senior year in high school to my fifth year on campus, times were just unbelievable. The types of characters that I interacted with, just priceless. Neway, all I'm saying is that clearly that point of my life has come and gone and there is no longer a need or a real desire to try and relive that, I mean at this point it's impossible to try and replicate the people, places, and experiences I had so its about time to move on and start new ones.

Hotel Arch, I will definitely be back to visit you guys and see you off on your senior years on campus, but for the most part I will continue to try and build post-college relationships with my 1502 family, both summer and school time.

Well now that I got that out of the way, I'd like to address a fair well letter to my good friend Richard, who I will miss dearly.

Dear Richard,
I have without a doubt shared the best years of my life, thus far, with you and due to you. You took me in with open arms when I was a meager 18 year old child, and you watched me grow into a 23 year old, what I would like to think, adult. To say that my experience in college would have been just as great without you would be a blatant lie, after all, many, and I mean many of my exploits with people happened thanks to you. I mean seriously, where else can I go up to the bar, meet a girl, have her buy me a drink, and then have her take me out to the dance floor to say "hello" amongst many other things. I know that no other place will quite give me to joy or opportunities that you brought, and for that I will be forever grateful. Here's to bad DJ's, playing music on ipods, quarters, sharkbowl races, making our own drinks, identity theft, playing tag, being the only people in the bar, spending too much money and spending no money at all, seeing you almost 7 straight days, and of course here's to "hello the 1502 way."

Despite all of our crazy times together, the real reason I'm writing is to say goodbye. I know its sad, but like I said what we have is an unforgettable Past, not a present. It's about time that I moved on to Different things, while I was a wild and crazy kid back then, I am now a bit more reserved (though not much) and have to approach life a little differently. The days of random drinks and dancing may be coming to an end, but they will live on forever in my memory. I know what you're saying, "it'll never be the same without you and 1502" while I may agree, Richard you need to remember that every year you get an influx of all new children to play with. It seems you are attracting younger people these days and that's not necessarily a bad thing. These new classes with learn to love you all over again like we did, so you'll always be special to someone. Also, you know that anytime we come back to Ann Arbor we will always stop by to see you, Ann Arbor wouldn't be the same without you and we know that.

So for now Richard, this is farewell, this is not goodbye but see you later, it may be awhile but I will see you again. Take care of this new class the ones still to come just like you took care of the ones of the past. Every time I hear someone say your name, or read a post about you somewhere I will smile as I'm sure we all will do. Thank you again for everything.

Yours forever,

Stev

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Fall for your Type

Happy Election Day Everyone!

I just realized that it feels like the weekend. Most likely because the two things I have been doing recently, coaching class and coaching, were canceled for the last two days...all that means is that it makes the rest of the week feel both pointless and kind of annoying....but no worries because ANN ARBOR on THURSDAY!...Wow that means I one day week for me, wonder how tomorrow will go...will i be motivated or will I just want to slack off.

I can't say I'm much for politics. Mostly because for as long as I remember I couldn't vote, which served as a nice and convenient excuse for me to not care or get involved in the governing of our nations. And then I spent a nice 5 years of my mature thinking stages in Michigan, a place I always knew I wouldn't end up living...what's the end result, well its me not registering to vote because I just didn't want either candidate to win and I didn't do enough research into what else was going on. Maybe as I continue to get older, get a job, and things start affecting me I'll learn my lesson and become a citizen.

I would say that tonight, for the first time since probably sophomore-junior year, I facebook stalked. Not one particular person or anything, but i definitely looked at a good number of pictures and peered into the lives of people that were once my close friends. I don't want to say it depressed me, just made me more aware of how far I've grown apart from everything I knew "home" to be outside of my family. A few friends are now married, no wedding invites for me, a couple others have moved to different places, penn, florida, new york, carolina and so forth. It seems that for the most part, they all kept up with each other in college which is probably why I am so separate now. I guess you can say I got exactly what I wanted. By junior year of high school I was totally over Loch Raven and couldn't wait to get as far away from this place as possible. I mean Ann Arbor is amazing, I will always love that place and feel at home there, but it always seemed like a temporary bubble that I would eventually have to get over and move on from...I suppose thats what I need to learn to do, move on. I set myself up to where I let go of my high school self, now its time to do the same for college...except I think I learned my lesson this time, I will def keep up with my Mich friends. Like Chin said we are separated by location, but I still don't know where I would be without any of those guys, especially wheeler, so to totally phase them out would be tragic.

So what am I looking for this weekend? Well simply, a great time. When I left AA I had it all, a decent paying job that let me come and go whenever I wanted...No shortage of female companions, I had Cassie and Mike O and Kenzo around to cause Mayhem with, and I had a college town which let me travel almost anywhere by foot and do whatever. Since then I've been jobless (kinda) had no real social network of worth, continued a relationship with a very nice girl, took something precious from that girl, and slowly started to walk in the direction of my future...Meaning I signed up for the Feb GRE. So lets see, hopefully this weekend I don't go too crazy, and by that I mean no taking precious moments, nothing too silly with anyone I meet or already know, and well hang out with Cass and Chin and Hotel Arch and remind myself that I am cool and people like me ha. But yeah it's going to be a nice escape, a little fresh air of fun that will help me prepare for this long haul of GRE studying, all day coaching and subbing, and repeating for 4-5 months.

On a side note...I hate the radio....So many of the same OLD songs we all loved months ago...For example, like a G6 has been playing non stop in bars(which if i'm dancing with 1502 wouldn't be so bad but when I'm the only one doing the dance its not quite as fun) and No Hands...a song I discovered before Wale's mixtape  came out, to say "overplayed" would be an understatement.....in either case I started making CD's again, and today while I was doing my "dance around in women's clothes and listen to music" routine, I rediscovered the skipping track. So here's to technology advancing at a ridiculous pace, and here's to the anti-skip function on the walkman( CD player version, the TAPE version is officially no longer in production!!!)


See you, well some of you, soon.