Life in the City

Well, the last couple days have been interesting. Allow me to elaborate.

I was doing errands on Friday, and having checks to deposit from my birthday and Christmas, I went to the bank, because it's the logical place to go. Well, I'm standing there in line, standing, standing, and this guy comes up behind me. A normal occurrence.

Then he starts talking.

I initially write him off as another annoying person yapping on a cell phone at any and all times, but then I realize that nothing he's saying is making any sense. Well over 90% of the words he was saying were completely unintelligible. I had heard about these people in Psychology last term, and I knew there were some in Oakland.

It seemed as though he was telling the same story over and over again, which must be a horrible way to go through life. But it was "mumble, mumble, mumble," for several minutes as I was able to creep up to the front of the line. The person in front of me was visibly uneasy, and she wasn't even standing next to the guy!

As time progressed, I was able to understand a few more words here and there, but not enough for me to have any clue what he was rambling on about. The most coherent collection of consecutive words I heard that could possibly be treated as a complete sentence were, (and I'm not making this up), "they got burnt by a prostitute n****r."

Ah! Life in the city! It just doesn't get any better than this...

And I really am not making that up. That wasn't just a Dave Barry reference.

So, like any other Friday, I finish at 11:50, and I have lunch: pasta. I mean, that place is good... Then I went to my Heinz Chapel Choir solo audition.

Now there's this beautiful Russian song that we'll be singing with an amazing baritone solo. Only problem: I'm a first tenor. I'd love to send even a MIDI of it to you all. Really. The text is from a poem by Alexander Pushkin:

Русский	English
Зорю бют...	They’re sounding reveille...
из рук моих ветхий Данте выпадает,	From my hands the ancient Dante falls,
на устах начатый стих недочитанный затих —	On my lips a verse, half-read, falls silent,
дух далёко улетает.	The spirit soars into the distance.
Звук привычный, звук живой,	Ah, familiar sound, lively sound!
как ты часто раздавался там,	How often you sounded there,
где тихо развивался я давнишнею порой.	Where I quietly grew up in days long past.
Зорю бют...	They’re sounding reveille...

But, alas, as I said, the solo was too low for me, and I was told that. And I knew that going in. My director said it showed a lot about me, though, still trying out. I'm hoping that's a good thing. And I hope whoever does get the solo does a beautiful job.

At 13:30, my service learning group had what was hopefully the last of our boring Friday meetings before we move on to actually collecting the data we've been "hired" to collect rather than sitting around a table talking about it because we don't have the instruments yet, and can't get them until Tuesday at the earliest. I'll definitely be posting some stuff about that here as things move along. Just not now. Oh my gosh, not now. We're currently making progress at a slow trickle and that doesn't make for particularly good reading.

I called my brother in the afternoon to wish him a happy 15th birthday, because I'm a nice brother like that, and I generally remember people's birthdays. It was a short call, because he had told me in an email that he was planning to make biscuits with one of his friends that day. Why biscuits? Beats me. My parents hadn't yet gotten home, though, so I haven't heard how the biscuit-making went, because it hadn't been allowed to start by that point. But I'm sure he had fun.

Which reminds me, yes, I set up David with an email address back on New Year's Eve. I'm sure he'd love to hear some belated birthday wishes from relatives, so if you're related to us, ask me, and I'll give it to you.

In that same email, David said, "It's okay; I forgot your birthday, too," in reference to what I had said earlier about the next event on Friday evening: the bandie dance! Or more technically, the Third Annual Pitt Band Senior Recognition Ball. Which is only third annual because they changed the name to "Recognition Ball" back in 2005. David was mad that such an event would be held on, of all days, his birthday, and I had to remind him that (a) hardly anyone here knows him or his birthday, and (b) for about 364/365 of the population, 19 January is just a normal day.

After the senior speeches, the awards ceremony, and the commemorative video and slideshow, there was about an hour left for dancing. And not many people stayed. But I stayed just to hang out with my friends, because everyone knows I don't dance. And yes, that was a link to my fourth blog post ever.

After the ball, some of my friends went to the ΙΒΚ party, and I did not, in favor of tidying up my dorm room (which in the last few days has become a mess) and sleep. Now, for those of you who don't know, ΙΒΚ is the social fraternity of the band, so... well, this will explain it...

I awoke at 02:22 Saturday morning to the buzzing sound of my cell phone going off. And quite literally, the three letters going through my head were "WTF?" But then it hit me. I knew who was calling. It was my North Carolinian friend from the band, Emily. Later, she gave me permission to post, word for word, the content of the voicemail she left me in the middle of the night:

Hey, there, I'm... really drunk, and you know this 'cause my accent has come back. So when you..., so when you get this tomorrow, you're gonna laugh because it's kinda funny... And, I just fell over and tripped over the fuckin' ledge, and fell over and scraped my knee, and scraped my hand, but I didn't fall over the house, so you can be grateful for that. But I did fall over and scrape my knee and scr... Oh my god! I'm about to fall again! But, you can be grateful for that. But I'll talk to you later, and you'll make fun of me for this 'cause I know you will. Alright, bye!

So, ha ha! Emily got drunk and hurt herself, and I didn't! Ha! Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh-nyeh!!!

And that's enough making fun of Emily.

Also at the bandie dance, I saw some of the other freshman trumpeters that I hadn't seen in a while and decided I needed to keep in touch with them more, have lunch or something. So I added them to my ongoing Facebook poke war, which will at least remind me periodically to keep in touch with them. If you don't have a Facebook account and thus don't know what a "poke war" is, there's really no point to explaining it. It's silly, and that's all that matters.

So on to Saturday, which consisted of returning my marching band uniform (sob!) and receiving CDs of the pregame concerts for the year. Which will be fun to listen to because I actually have something that can play CDs down here now: my computer.

Then I went to the women's basketball game, where the Panthers held South Florida to 14 points in the first half, ultimately winning 73-48. That brings them to a 15-3 record (3-2 in the Big East), putting them 7th in the conference. Sunday's men's game pitting (6) Pittsburgh against (24) Marquette is conveniently opposite the Saints-Bears NFC Championship game. But they'll show scores on PantherVision during timeouts and such. They always do.

It was also the first basketball game in over a month to which I had worn my own pants. Over winter break, my mother had offered to do my laundry, but she neglected to make sure my khaki pants were in the pile to be sent back down to Pittsburgh. And when do I realize this? Half an hour before I'm to be at the first game after break. So after literally borrowing khaki pants from the band (the ones kept in the closet) for five straight games, I was elated when a package arrived in the mail for me containing my very own khaki pants. All in all, it just amounts to a $4.20 oversight: the cost of shipping.

Saturday evening was uneventful. Homework, nap, homework, Internet, homework. And a dinner in there somewhere. It doesn't really matter where. And now I'm blogging (early Sunday morning). Andrea sent me an instant message to be conversational shortly after midnight, but the conversation really didn't go anywhere. It's pretty evident from the transcript below that we realized this at pretty much the exact same time:

[00:19:44] Andrea: so
[00:19:45] Tim: ...
[00:19:47] Tim: lol
[00:19:48] Andrea: hahaha
[00:19:57] Andrea: talk about good timing
[00:19:57] Tim: good timing
[00:19:59] Tim: lol
[00:19:59] Andrea: hah
[00:20:01] Andrea: stop
[00:20:01] Tim: wow
[00:20:08] Tim: !!!!
[00:20:10] Andrea: haha
[00:20:13] Andrea: we're good at this

So that was fun. And mildly freaky. But whatever.

Sunday will bring double CHEM homework, because our section of the lab didn't meet last Monday while the other one did on Tuesday. Which also, to some extent means triple lab, because they did two short experiments last week. But they're being nice about it and are giving us several weeks to make those two up, because three labs in one week (let alone three lab reports) is not fair.

Facebook tells me that on Monday 22 January, four of my friends will have their birthday, which is quite a lot. Usually it's just one or two. But there will be four: one from choir, one from MATH, one from high school marching band, and one from FootSteps. I was curious and found that 22 January is tied for second to 31 May and 15 September, which each have five. One of the five on 31 May is Emily, which you may already know because I had to invent her half-birthday.

Classwise, for my relatives' sake, all is going well. I currently have 100% in CHEM and PHYS, which are the only two classes that have returned any grades yet. Exams don't start up until 07 February. Oh, and 38 days until I formally declare my major on 28 February. Eek! I go to a ChE open house on Wednesday 24 January to make sure I like it, I guess.

And with that, I'm going to have to conclude this oh so long post. Why do I do this? I don't know. But I like it. And I guess that's all that matters...

Random tangent: Can you say "snow"? Finally, oh my gosh, SNOW!!! Like, real snow. None of that little fluffy flurry stuff that these Pittsburghers call snow. Accumulation. That's where it counts. And the best part is, it doesn't stay for days on end and get all icky. It melts... just in time for new snow.