Graduation - 2010ve

13 years of hard work and dedication all led up to this day; Congratulations Class of 2010, we did it!

Bowling Under a Star Speckled Sky

Help! The time-space continuum seems to be breaking down. Yesterday's senior picnic barbecue seems like ages ago and today day seemed twice as long as usual.

I woke up at the ungodly hour of 7:45AM on a day I don't even have school, and after failing to force myself back asleep I reluctantly got up. Given nothing to really do until Dutch's grad party at 6 in the evening, I made myself breakfast and began what would end up being a three and a half hour marathon of The Sarah Jane Adventures (A Doctor Who spin-off for those not as nerdalicious as me) on Syfy. After a brief respite for a series of conversations on Facebook, I returned this time to my laptop and watch the Andrew-Justin storyline from Desperate Housewives on Youtube (and they say our generation is lazy, pff).

Gimme some of that, please.

Tired of television, I decided that I should probably get myself moving again and go for a run/ab and upper body workout (got to look good for summer y'know). My workout consisted of a run around my neighborhood which is 2 miles or so in the end (way off) and a series of 40-30-20-10 crunches woven together with a 20-15-10-5 series of push-ups (actually stuck to). After a shower, I got lunch and some graduation gifts for my friends I finally got ready for the party.

We'd been told we would be allowed to use the pool so I packed my swimsuit and towel and got ready to leave. When I arrived, I stuffed my face with all sorts of delectable foods Dutch's mom, the cooking goddess, made, leaving nothing on my plate like the food vacuum I am. The party itself was rather dull to be perfectly honest, many people were there, but in the end, it was just the normal mix of people separating off into groups and gossiping. When the party moved outside, I mentioned to one of my friends a suggestions he made that we should go bowling one day. Well, as things work out, one thing led to another and seven of us (host included, I'm not that big of a douche) went to our local Bowl America for a late-night all-you-can-bowl special.

When we first walked in, we noticed something peculiar - half of the pretty packed 40-lane alley were people from out school, weird. We got to our lanes and got bowling. Now, I don't know how often you guys go bowling but for a sport that involves hurling a heavy bowl down a greased stretch of wood into a set of ten pins all for the sake of knocking them down, it's pretty damn entertaining. In the first ten minutes, we cheered, laughed and high-fived more than we had at the past two hours at the party, friendly competition made things even more fun. For me at least, one thing I personally enjoyed about the time at the alley would be that when I wasn't bowling, I got to just sit and watch the hot skinny semi-hipster guy in the lane next to us bowl. He was so much better than all of us and every time I made eye contact with him, I'd quickly turn my head back to the screen, pretending to concentrate on the rather dismal scores before me.

By the time we finished our second round, hot-hipster man had left but to our right was a new group of teens our age from a different school. They were just as loud and excitable as we were but one guy caught my eye. He wore a pink and white striped polo and walked over to the empty lane hot-hipster guy had left to get a ball for his game. He too was kinda cute, not terribly attractive, but enough to catch my attention. I didn't give him too much of a thought as we went through our third and final round for the night but caught one last glance as me and my group of friends got our stuff and went to return our shoes. Pink-polo kid was siting on another guy's lap with his arm around his shoulder. Now I knew some guys who did this as a bro-bonding experience, but this definitely was not one of those situations, this was more. I half-smiled as I caught one last glance of the pair as I walked away, thinking "god, I want that" with every step. By the time we left it was about 11:30 at the humid air was as thick as ever. I dropped my friend Dutch off back at her home and went home myself.

Final surprise of the night, my mom greets me at the door with "guess who called while you were gone". Crap, did I do something wrong? "who?" I innocently inquired. "Mr ______, your sixth grade history teacher." "What?" It turns out he saw me at the Varsity Awards Banquet last night when I won "Scholar Athlete" for crew and remembered me. In the back of the program, all the seniors had their names and college they were attending listed and he saw I was headed off to Georgetown. He had called to congratulate me and told my mom to have me call him back.

Am I surprised? yes. But I'm happily surprised that one of my elementary school teachers would actually remember me and take time out of his way and make a personall call of congratulations. So Mr. _______, I will be calling you tomorrow afternoon, and thanks for a sweet ending to what was initially a slow day.

Graduation countdown: T-minus 1 day


All the best,

JP

I love you, you picky, expensive-tasted, attention whore

I mean, why else would I deal with you almost every day? You only serve one purpose, to make my life easier...that's it. From time to time I ask you to carry my stuff but does that really justify all your obvious faults?

You just have to always have the most expensive drink despite knowing my wallets cries every time I take you out. And whenever I bring you to school there's always the little freshman girl who ogles over you and then I have to talk about how great you are and how you're always on my side (lies!).

When I first met you, you were wonderful, perfect, nothing I could ever complain about - you were so much better than the last one. But now, almost fours years later, you're really starting to let yourself go.

You grumble, nag, and complain every time I take you out, You don't even have the guts to voice it out loud, you just whisper your complaints, knowing that I will turn down the radio so I can hear what's the matter. Then you decide that you won't tell me what the problem is, you'd rather leave me guessing, trying day in and day out to figure why you act like you do.

When my mom first introduced me to you long all those years ago, I knew you were going to be mine, and when you became mine, I was elated to begin my journey with you, but the honeymoon's over. You know how to push my buttons alright, make me hate you, but you don't care because you know at the end of the day...

I love you.

...now take me to tonights grad party you whore

And the Countdown Begins

Hey guys, I haven't done a post about what's been going on in my life for quite some time now so here we go.

Today was my last full day of high school ever. From now until graduation next Thursday it's going to be senior finals and our Senior picnic. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm almost done with school. It really is an end of an era, thirteen years of work has all built up to this event. I've already done most of my finals since AP classes took their finals back in May so we're forced to do a "culminating activity" because watching a movie doesn't count apparently.

Graduating is bittersweet really. Since we got our yearbooks, every time I signed one, I would think back to all the great times I had with that person and feel sad that in all likelihood, I will rarely ever, or even never see that person again. Some of these people I have known since elementary school and while we have made a pact to stay in touch and visit each other, all those other friends don't have as concrete of a future contact-wise. I've accepted that this will be the end of the road for many of my friendships but there are a few people who I really hope I won't lose contact with, no matter how long we don't see each other.

But I guess I should focus on the positives. It's a time to celebrate, all my hard work had paid off - I'm going to college, there is a string of graduation parties coming up, and my friend who moved to Florida two years ago is coming up for a visit and we're having a welcome back party complete with Indian food.

I don't want to make another cheesy metaphor about life so I'll just end it here. Summer is coming up soon and so far I know I'll be going on a two week cruise to Alaska this year so that should be an adventure.

All the best,

JP

Five Parts Gin, One Part Vermouth...

Friday nights in the city see many an office secretary, lawyer, sales person and even teacher go out on the town for a drink. Things start out civil, and by 11 or so, most have gone home to bed for a well deserved day of not-work the morning after. Stick around a little longer however and you see quite an amazing sight.

With the moon high and the bars finally closing, the pressed and polished descend upon the streets once again, but this time a little less inhibited than before.

There's your eighth grade history teacher laughing up a storm at another unfunny joke

Over there's the library assistant twirling down the streets as if she were in some Disney movie remake.

And inevitably, around the corner is the poor pencil-pusher whose raring to pick a fight with the next person to walk by and have the misfortune of making eye contact with him.

With college around the corner and the inevitable parties soon to follow, I've come to wonder- what kind of hidden personality will come up as the drinks go down? I don't really drink. If anything, I've had a few cups of champagne over the holidays. Hard liquor is still a relative mystery to me, and beer, well let's just say it's an acquired taste, and at the moment at least, something I don't particularly subscribe to.

When the time comes however and the little devil on my shoulder defeats my common sense, I want to know what kind of person I will end up being.

Will I be the happy drunk that suddenly is best friends with the random stranger in the corner?

Or will I be the angry drunk, pissing and moaning about how there's one too many stripes on your favorite sweater and making sure the whole world knows about it?

Maybe I'll end up being the crazy drunk that ends up climbing on random pieces of furniture in my underwear claiming to conquer new lands for the British Empire.

I could just end up being the sleepy drunk that just collapses on the sofa and sleeps until the next afternoon.

Then again, I could end up being like some undiscovered specie, with behaviour so radical that men in white lab coats will be taking notes on my every move.

Well, time will tell how I will turn out, but if you see me stumbling around the streets of D.C. late at night one day, leave a comment telling me what type of drunk I am, 'cause I'll probably not remember the morning after.

JP