best day of the year

hi friends,

Patriot’s Day/Marathon Monday is almost upon us and I could not be more psyched. As you may know, I hail from the birthplace of America, Lexington, MA. Patriot’s Day is a HUGE deal back home, which I recently learned is not the case in every other town in America except for Lexington and Concord. On the third Monday of April, my hometown goes wild. The day begins at midnight, when Paul Revere rides in from Boston to give the warning and someone rings the bell at the Belfry. Then, everyone goes to the Battle Green at about 5:30am for the reenactment. There are, of course, the colonists and the Red Coats facing off on this stretch of grass right in the middle of town. It’s usually drizzling and cold but so many people show up just to watch. Joining this is the sort of thing that fathers and sons do together. When you start out, they make you be a Red Coat and then when you’ve been around long enough, you get to be a colonist. But they start shooting at each other at some point and it’s very dramatic as the sun is rising. People fall down “dead” and wives and mothers come running out of the historic houses around the Green screaming bloody murder because of their dead sons and husbands. The whole thing takes about 45 minutes and is actually really cool to see. Then, most people head over to St. Bridgid’s Church for the Annual Boy Scout Pancake Breakfast. Following that is the morning parade where all the little kids in their Little League teams and some of the local dance companies and other groups march throughout the town. There are various speeches throughout the day, celebrating whichever outstanding youths were chosen for the Rotary Club awards and then comes the afternoon parade. In case you couldn’t tell, my town is very big on tradition. But it’s our strange little tradition and it also makes for a very interesting time trying to explain it to people who aren’t from there.

While all of this is happening, the Boston Marathon is also going on, so it’s always a tough choice to decide which one to go to, but I usually go to both. Watching the Marathon is always so fun because everyone is out with their signs and my family used to go to see my dad cross the finish line every year. There are cowbells everywhere and the city is an incredible place to be. Especially seeing the people who are running for charity and people of all abilities completing the 26.2 miles. Patriot’s Day/Marathon Monday is one of my favorite days of the year because both my old hometown and my new home comes together for one day to celebrate people and I love the sense of community that you can feel everywhere. I’m sad to be missing the reenactment and all the various events in Lex but you better believe I’ll be out on that marathon course somewhere, cowbell in hand.

sleep tight,

maya

MILITARY SERVICE

As usual, I’m going to talk about what I did during the weekend. Oh before that, I was doing workout on Thursday at night in Marino Center and thirty minutes after, my friend texted me if I would like to join the Karaoke around 11:00 pm. I had a dilemma to decide since I had a Spanish presentation the next day morning that needed some practice time, but I really wanted to go to Karaoke too for a long time. 30 minutes passed, and then I decided to go back to my dorm room, shower, and be ready to jam in Karaoke. And I did not regret singing and dancing with my OG crew members for 2 hours. 

Yesterday night, I met my old high school friends again but this time also with a BU friend whom I have known since middle school. We ate at the Kaju Tofu house at Allston, and the food was super good, like I highly recommend all of you guys to try one there. Then, we visited the Beard Papa’s that sold cream and ice-cream breads. Again, these were also super good. I ate two ice-cream breads, one with green tea flavor and the other one with vanilla, and the rest of my friends regretted for not ordering the ice-cream breads and ordering a regular cream bread instead. Then, we all went to one of my friends’ room to watch horror movies staying up late until 5:00 am. This time, we watched one Korean movie and one American movie. I watched a film “Sinister” and it was scary, there were several jump scares, and I loved the plot twist at the end. I recommend you guys to watch it at midnight like us! 

Today, I woke up at 12:30 pm and ate lunch in BC cafeteria. The chocolate pancake was super tasty, and I hope one day Northeastern prepare some chocolate pancakes too. My friend and I started talking about going to the Korean military service soon. So, it’s like this mandatory service where Korean male are forced to go to a military service in chosen area of South Korea for a year and a half. And I can’t find any benefits for me to serve in the military. I would literally be wasting my time doing something that does not help me for my future as a career and for my life. For a year and a half, I would be gone in Boston and stop my student learning until September of 2021 and then start as a 2nd grade of pharmacy student. It means that I will be graduating two years after my present pharmacy friends graduate. I know that it will be a one-time experience that might turn into a good recall some time but really one year and a half is too much. Still, I decided to join the army this year and not after I graduate because it is worse to think of joining the army after graduation and before getting a job. 

On Loneliness: I feel u Maya

I read Maya's post and for some reason I was so relieved to know that there is someone who feels like I do. And I don't even know why I felt relieved because I know everyone isn't really as happy and social as they lead on, and everyone feels lonely sometimes. But in a time where everyone is posting the highlights of their weekends on snapchat and you're constantly being pummeled by happy people with happy friends, you kind of forget that people are normal like you and don't always feel happy like you think. I had a pretty ideal social life in high school, which I am really thankful for. I had a group of about 5 friends who I practically grew up with, and we are super close and have done so much together. Freshman year at Colorado College, in hindsight, I had a great group of friends, but in the moment I would always compare myself to everyone else and I still felt like I was lonely even though I had friends around me. Now, as a transfer student living off campus, I am finding it pretty difficult to make friends. I love my housemates and they are my good friends. I have class-friends but we don't hang out outside of studying here and there. I have made a few connections but nothing has really stuck. I guess I miss the closeness that I felt with my high school friends. But its taken me a while to realize I don't always have to be living the perfect life with a comfortable group of friends. It's okay for it to take some time to adjust. Social media, at least for me, makes me feel really lonely and makes me compare myself to other people. Ever since I've cut down my social media consumption, I have been feeling a lot happier. Not only do I just feel less anxious since I have more time to sit with my thoughts and not scroll through a feed, but I just feel better about myself. I am not sure where I am going with this, but I guess my point is that it's okay to feel lonely. Society constantly tells us that its bad for some reason to feel sad or alone, when I think it's perfectly normal. It only makes you more sad to think about how you are sad, and old makes you more lonely when you think about how lonely you are. The best thing to do is just accept that you're feeling a normal emotion. :)

Response to Maya

In response to Maya’s post, it really do be like that sometimes. It’s so true that being lonely in college isn’t something that’s talked about a lot. It’s always about the independence or the workload or the different kinds of people you can meet. It’s sad but it makes sense that it’s harder to meet people in college. In high school, you’re surrounded by the same people for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. The friends that you make are the ones around you, the people that you see most. At least for me, I was friends with some people just because it was convenient. High school is so exhausting, physically and mentally, that you just want to go home and sleep. It’s also hard to be lonely in high school because you’re living with your family. I don’t think there were many times where I was completely alone. But in college, it takes so much more effort to hang out with people. Last semester, I really tried to hang out with a lot of different people and I think everyone else was like that too. But now, everyone has their own friend groups and no one really makes the effort anymore. After coming back from winter break, it felt like I never left. I fell into a routine so quickly because I was already used to everything around me. Routine is comfortable but it can get boring and sometimes lonely too. Obviously there are times when I want to be alone but I find myself wanting to hang out with people and do something more than last semester. I’m definitely more comfortable with being alone but I’m still not really used to it. Idek what I’m saying. But Maya, walking along the river + bubble tea sounds like a great time so lmk if you ever want to hang out :)

On a different note, I hate my room. The window is now closed because the dust was just too much to handle. I freaking have a stye on my left eye because everything in our room is covered in dust, my bed + pillow included. Megan has been coughing up a storm and tbh, I think she had a fever. At first, we thought the cough was because of allergies or the dust but I think she’s been sick this whole time. I only think this because I woke up hella congested with a slight fever yesterday. These are the downsides of living in a tiny closet-like room. You really don’t appreciate your health until it’s taken away from you.

Love,

Crystal

Blog 10

This week was a very interesting one. People stayed over at my dorm basically the entire week. It was a pretty bad experience. I live in a triple and one of my roommates had three people over. It was not a good time. They slept on the floor and basically took up all the space. There was barely any space to walk in and out and barely any space to open the door. This wasn’t even for only one day, it was for the entire week. When he asked me if it was okay to have people stay over for a week, I thought it would only be one person, not three. They also usually stayed up late talking and laughing, so it was extremely hard for me to sleep. I couldn’t really say anything about it because they had no where else to go, but I was pretty annoyed. It was fine the first day, but the other four days were just annoying. I think I definitely should have said something for myself and not care about what they think. Because of them, it was definitely not as productive as a week for me. Other than that, it has been a very normal week. I’m currently preparing for my biology midterm tomorrow. I am actually screwed because I currently do not know anything on what the midterm is on. It’s just so hard, but it would probably help if I actually went to class. I really need to grind tonight but I honestly don’t really have time for it. Service learning was pretty chill this week too. Megan and Crystal didn’t do this week because they were sick, so it was just me tutoring the kids. This class was writing a persuasive essay on any topic they wanted to write about. One student I was helping wrote their essay on cash bail and it actually was extremely good. I was pretty shocked of how good it was. He had all the points down, solid supporting details, a good counter argument etc. This week was better because they actually had drafts that I could read.

An Individual without the Culture

      Well, as you might have already deduced, this week's blog will be about me(duh) and my thoughts regarding my culture or lack thereof. This is going to be a delayed reflection on one of our class conversations.

      I would not say that the discussion we had on the topic of our cultural background was an eye-opening experience, but I have to admit that it was interesting to hear what other people had to say. It was also quite inspiring to hear everyone sharing a piece of their personal history with the class. I can not really recall what I said during that discussion but I sure do remember the weird feeling that I cannot really depict in this blog. I could feel some sort of void in my consciousness or my soul, whichever you prefer, and it made think through my life and see what caused that "void" to appear.

     I have to say right away that I do not really remember most of the details from my recent past. However, I do remember that I asked myself a similar question back in my 9th grade. I was wondering where did my ancestors come from, what is my cultural background? I started asking everyone in my family to share whatever they know about our past. It took me almost two years to gathers some scraps of information in the form of photographs and old stories, and nothing else. One might consider that as a plethora of information and continue speculating from there, but I still wanted to obtain more physical evidence to make sure that I am not making anything up. I wanted to have a solid knowledge of my cultural background backed by the physical proof. Well, I did not manage to achieve that goal.

    With time, my perspective regarding my life and my cultural background started to turn into a different shape. I became a bit more indifferent toward all those memories I managed to collect. I realized that I will not be able to accomplish my task anytime soon and decide to move on, or maybe I just gave up on my culture on that day. I started to absorb different views, positions, habits, patterns of speech, tastes... Unfortunately, my aspirations and perspectives turned me into an outcast. I have to say that it was not a big of an issue for me because I have learned that I need to advance.

     Adaptation became my number one priority and not having a particular cultural background made it a bit easier. The ability to adapt became a crucial skill later on when I moved to the US. No one cared who am the only way I could integrate myself into my new life was to assimilate with the local "culture" as soon as possible. I managed to do that in a fairly short amount of time. Nevertheless, everything has its price and one always has to sacrifice something in order to get something new.

   Even when I am typing these lines I can feel that weird emptiness, which will probably accompany me until the rest of my life. Oh well, there is no turning back now, and who knows maybe I will be able to discover something that would feel that void.

Blog #10

I was unable to go to O’Bryant last week because I had to take a friend to the hospital the night before and was up late there, so I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make it to O’Bryant in the morning. My friend is all good though so that’s good news. In rugby related news, I got to play in my first 7s tournament this past weekend and I started with the top side. I was shook to see my name on that roster for that tournament because it is one of the bigger ones that we get to play in this season. That being said, the biggest in terms of the caliber of teams that will be present, is this upcoming weekend. I hope my performance this past weekend gets me a roster spot for this Saturday. If not, I have other years, but our team this year is super special and is super good. We are #5 in the nation for a reason. That ranking comes after our fall 15s season where we went to nationals and had a few upsets. I was lucky enough to be on the roster for nationals and got some good playing time as well which I am hoping will allow me to consistently start next fall. We have 14 seniors on the team and it’s going to be a tough next few years as we will have to rebuild. Anyways, I’ve been working super hard in practices recently because my roster spot is far from secure and I want to prove that I deserve it. Hopefully I’ll make the cut for this weekend.

Again, I’m out of writing ideas so I will ramble. I was on the phone with my mom a few days ago and I was eating some Honey Bunches of Oats cereal and she told me that I should be eating a more balanced cereal or oat meal. Not going to lie I was a little bent, so I went out and bought some Quaker Oatmeal Squares cereal out of spite. I have yet to try it so I cannot rate the quality of the cereal, but it looks good?? I was also recently invited to a wedding. It is for one of my mentors from high school. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to go because it is in Virginia and is coming up this July. I’ll be free, but I’ll also be in California so it’s quite far for me to travel, especially if I’m working. Anyways that’s all that’s going on with me and I’m close to the word count suggestion so I can stop rambling now.

My thoughts on journaling and also responding to Maya's post

Keep in mind that these are my opinions, and that while I personally do not enjoy journaling, I will never judge a person for enjoying to do so. That being said, here goes:

"I hate writing a copious amount of words down and I think this exercise is bad. In general, I enjoy writing short blurbs about one small prompt or another, but the whole idea of writing to write is bullshit to me. For people that really want to do it, I ask "why?" I am genuinely interested as to how you enjoy scrawling garbage onto a page or three for however long it takes, how you enjoy your right (or left, I don't judge) hand cramping up so you are forced to do that thing where you roll your wrist hoping that it alleviates the pain, how you enjoy this garbage language we call English enough to not shirk away at the sight of it. Okay, I got my "funny" part out of the way and don't want to put any more of my caffeine-fueled energy into writing much further, but since Sebastian hasn't called "time" yet, I guess I have to keep at this menial labor. Frankly, this will be great when I put this on my blog post for the week and maybe like 2 people read the absolute comedy gold I have graced you with. Sebastian, honest question for you bud, do you read these? If you do then damn I feel bad that you had to read my sorry excuses for 500 words. My forearm really hurts from writing now so I'm just gonna stop until time is up and make it look like I'm writing. Peace out losers."

Now obviously, in classic Calvin "Dramatic" Arevalo "Wait he's a theatre kid?" Tobias fashion, I'm being extremely over the top with my statement of opinion. But that's nothing new for y'all so I hope you appreciate that for what it is. All that stupidity being said, I would really enjoy hearing everyone's opinion about journaling past what we talked about on Friday. If you wanna share you opinion with you (yes even you Sebastian) please do reach out.

To finish this post out, I wanna comment on Maya's post about loneliness. While I do totally see her points and agree with them, I feel like everything has been the opposite way for me.College has been the time in my life where I can truly be social and enjoy my life while also having that balance of lonely time. See, when I was in high school, I committed my life to my studies and music/theatre. Everyone that I talked to was the same, even more over the top than I am and ready to turn their backs on each other at the drop of a pin. Each person was incredibly social but not a single person was a good friend. They all lived their lives with shallow friendships but seemed happy with that. I was extremely social in high school, but not in the way I wanted. I was isolated from everyone else, nobody knew the real me, and it was difficult to show anyone. However, coming to Northeastern, I have found the opposite. I have made such a close group of really good friends, and have genuinely never felt happier in my life. Now believe me, nothing is perfect, but I have enjoyed these past few months more than anything else in my life. That being said, I am always happy to meet new people and form new friendships. I would love to go for a walk and grab bubble tea at any point, so if you hit up Maya or Megan, add me too!

as always with peace and love,
Ya Boi Calvin

Queen Music / Talking to People

Edward's post this week about possibly writing his review on the movie Bohemian Rhapsody reminded me that I wanted to talk about this, so I tip my proverbial hat to you Edward. Recently my friend called me out for being a fake Queen fan because I had not heard every song they had ever written. He claimed that he has heard every song ever released by his favorite artist, Childish Gambino. Now while that seems like that might be a bit unreasonable he isn't necessarily wrong there weren't many songs off their two Greatest Hits albums that I could name, which is pretty shameful for someone who has a Queen flag in their room. So I set out to listen to every Queen album available on Spotify, so far I have gotten through four full albums, they have a lot of music. I found myself kind of ashamed about how little of their discography I was familiar with, and how little I actually loved albums I claimed as my favorites. When I fully listened to Night at the Opera I added only one song that I didn't have before to my playlist, I feel pretty awful about it. But I truthfully still believe their my favorite band, even if I don't love even a majority of their songs the songs I do love have changed both my taste in music and who I am as a person. I love Queen and I still have a lot of music to make it through so I still might find songs I never knew I loved. Most of all I can't wait to go back to my friend and say that I have officially listened to every song they have ever written.

On a completely different note, this past Saturday was Relay for Life. Relay for Life was a huge event in my town and with the student of my school, so naturally I saw a bunch of Bedford High Alumni there. Being the sociable and polite person I claim to be I went up to them and asked them how they were doing. Do you ever start a conversation with a person and every second of that conversation wish that you were no longer in that conversation? That is how I felt in one of my conversations. I saw a boy who I was not that close to in High School on the outskirts of the track and I went up to him to say hello. This simple mistake led to an almost two hour long conversation about every aspect of both of our lives since our respective graduations (him being a year older than me). Many times the conversation trailed off and we were left walking in silence. I have no clue how he couldn't tell that I was itching to leave that interaction. There is no way I am that interesting, why did he want to talk to me for that long. My only escape was when they announced that there were free bagels for all the Relay for Life participants, he ran off to get one I slunk back into the shadows to disappear without a trace. Moral of the story is that everyone should be better at recognizing when a conversation has died and when to move on with your life and find someone else to talk to.

Quinn C. Dyer Continued

     It is currently March 24th. That means, in twenty-seven days, my roommate, Quinn, turns nineteen years old. Eight days before that is my birthday, but I don't celebrate so it doesn't matter. I want to do something for Quinn's birthday, though. I'm just not sure what I want to do yet. I'll probably end up getting him a cake, and have all of our friends pitch in for a present. I just want to do something nice, you know?

     I don't really know where I stand with Quinn. He's said on multiple occasions that I'm the person he's closest with last semester, but as of this semester, I doubt that's true. Our relationship has changed a lot. He's gotten closer with some people, and I've gotten closer with others. Most of the time, when it's just him and I together, there's nothing really to talk about. There's no chemistry. We don't click. When we're in a group though, we're fine with each other. I don't really know how to feel about it. We still live together, and hang out with the same group of people, but it feels like we might be drifting. No cap, sometimes he's just a dick to me when we're not in a group, but that's okay. I've noticed one thing in general with Quinn. I don't think he likes anyone here more than his friends back home. Living with him, I hear him talking to his friends from back home and he treats them very differently than he treats our friends here.

    As for me, I'm very cautious with the people in my life. I'm a harsh judge of character. Basically, I ask myself: "When shit goes down, who's got my back?" I'm not sure about Quinn. Some people say that I mean a lot more to him than I think, but who knows. He's my roommate, we're friends, he's a good guy and I still want to do something nice for him, regardless. I'm also living with him next year but that's not as significant because I'm living with seven other people next year. My group of guy friends just decided to grab two random people and get an eight person apartment in Loftman. Apparently, two of my friends went to check it out, and it's a shithole. The people living there now had to threaten to contact a government health inspector so the school would fix everything in the apartment. There's mold, leaking, and falling ceiling tiles. The people living there now said other than that, living in an eight person apartment is one of the best experiences they've had. So, at least that's good. Next year around this time, most of us we'll be on co-op but at least we can celebrate Quinn's birthday for the second year in a row when we're home. 

Reflecting on the Weekend

It’s such a weird time of year. Like I feel so motivated to finish the semester because I feel like I’ve done so much this school year, but knowing that I’ll be home for summer in less than a month is putting that feeling to the test. Besides finals, I’m having all of the last tests in each of my classes like now and next week, which just leaves projects and studying. I want to do work but I also just don’t want to at all!!!!

My boyfriend came to visit me this weekend!!!! I had such a good time with him and we didn’t really do anything very unusual besides participate in Relay for Life. To be completely honest, Relay for Life wasn’t as much fun as I was expecting, but no part of me regrets doing it. I knew that what I was doing was for a good cause, and I’m really proud of how much money I ended up raising. I raised $1,175 which will support cancer research and various cancer patients’ needs while they’re going through various processes to try to rid themselves of this awful disease. At around midnight, the Luminaria ceremony took place, and that put me in my FEELS. Last year, my aunt died of liver cancer, so I made sure to include her in the ceremony. When her name and the photo I submitted of us together came up on the big screen, I got really choked up. I try not to spend too much time thinking about things that I know will make me sad, but when I’m forced to in an instance like this, I really just dwell on it. To conclude the Luminaria ceremony, everyone walked a silent lap around the track, and when it was time to get up, my entire leg fell asleep. Like, not just my foot or anything. It was my entire leg. So, while I was all sad and weepy following the ceremony, I literally could not stand up and walk without the help of my boyfriend. I’m so thankful that he was there to commemorate my aunt with me. We had such a good time together and I miss him already (even though I’ll see him again when I go home).

Cam, Adam (another one of our roommates), and I had our first radio show at Relay! This was also right after the Luminaria ceremony so it was hard to just completely switch from being sad to being happy and funny on the radio. Nonetheless, we did it, and I had so much fun. It’s so unfortunate that our show has gotten blacked out every week this semester, because I just think we’re so good at it. I generally try not to say things like “I’m so good at ____” or “I know so much about _____,” but I just think it went so well and I think we missed out on creating such good memories in the studio this semester. We made ourselves laugh on air, and I really do think that that’s a sign that we should be on air more often. The worst part is that we won’t be able to do it next semester either, because Cam and I will be doing our semester in San Francisco. I’m really hoping we can do something like this in the future, and maybe if we’re really eager to do something like this sooner, we can start a podcast or something.

And that’s my update. :)

Response to Maya's post about loneliness

In response to Maya's post about loneliness I have to say that college is definitely a tough place to make friends sometimes. Although I spent more time in high school being alone, I notice that when you're by yourself in college you feel more alone. Maybe it's because you're not constantly seeing your family even if sometimes you feel alone despite the fact that they're there. Or maybe because although you see the same people in your classes everyday at college it's different from seeing the same people 5 days a week in high school. Regardless, I felt more alone in high school because sometimes even when I was surrounded with friends, those friendships didn't feel genuine and they just felt like something that existed because I saw them nearly everyday. In college, if you want to hang out with someone or even see them in that case, you have to make an effort and take initiative to actually plan something or grab a meal. Sometimes it gets tiring and then you're left alone in your dorm room with no plans and too much time to spare. But the friends I have made in college so far have been friends that I truly treasure because I know the amount of effort we have gone out of our way to put forth is genuine and creates something long-lasting. But that just makes the times when my best friends are out of town and I'm left alone on campus that much harder because suddenly you don't know how to not be surrounded by people constantly anymore. The first semester of college was full of transitions and constant excitement and trying to go out and talk to anybody and everybody to find the people you feel like you click with. Now that second semester is here, everybody is pretty burnt out from "making new friendships" and you kind of stick with the same group of people you see most often. Over break when I was alone, I found myself googling "things to do in Boston alone" as if the list would really be that much different than if I had just searched "things to do in Boston." But I found myself walking and exploring Boston and didn't actually feel as alone as I thought I would be when I was sitting alone in my dorm room trying to plan my day alone. I have found that being alone and feeling lonely are two separate things and just because I am alone doesn't mean I have to feel lonely. Although it is nice to have my friends around constantly, I find that I am relearning how to be independent again and being ok with having to eat alone sometimes or go on walks by myself. With all that being said, life is still better when done with friends sometimes, so Maya if you ever want to take a stroll or get some bubble tea together I would be down:)

To My Other W. W.

Did you guys ever watch Breaking Bad? I watched it a while ago (probably around 8^th grade), and it is still one of the only TV shows that I have ever finished. Obviously, I think it is a great show. The story is fascinating, and the characters are engaging. I think the thrill of the show comes from the decisions that are made. While this might sound generic, since the suspense for many movies and shows comes from making decisions, I think the unique context provided by the show allows for a new category of decisions, which, before watching the show, had probably never crossed the minds of the viewers.

I think the new category of decisions provides a reaction that is similar to hearing about the trolley problem for the first time. It is a very interesting concept to think about, and one can go over the different options multiple times. The difference is that the characters in the show always seem to find a bizarre way around their problems. The main character, Walter White, often finds ways to weasel himself out of situations by making deals or something of that sort. His lies become incredibly elaborate, and it almost becomes difficult to keep track of who knows what version of each story. At first, his frequent deals seemed to work rather well. Later on, he finds that the best way to keep people quiet is the permanent way.

With good actors and an intriguing story, it is very easy for viewers to feel as though they are a part of all of the action and deception. The new category of decisions that arises is due to the fact that the decisions that are made in the show are from the perspective of a high school chemistry teacher who, as it turns out, is in the process of establishing a drug empire. These decisions include cooking meth, lying to his wife, laundering money, killing people, poisoning a child, and robbing a train. Many decisions like these are made, and it always seems like when he is given a choice between two options, he manages to make a third. I think this is why the show was found to be thrilling by so many people. There was a whole new realm of options and decisions that hadn’t been explored yet. It is not everyday that one can be inside the mind of someone like Walter White.

His lies allowed his manipulative tentacles to have control over his family and business partners. He definitely has what one would call a “silver tongue.” As the show develops the characters, including his partner, who was an old chemistry student, and his brother in law, who is in the DEA, a complex network of relationships is formed. This complex network is always changing, due to factors that add people, connect people, and remove people. Walter’s wife eventually gets introduced into this network, and this leads to many complications regarding family life and work life.

Anyway, it’s a great show.

Cheers,

Adrian

Relay

            So a couple nights ago (Friday night to be exact) there was Relay for Life. Relay for Life is a non-profit organization that gathers donations for cancer research. The main event for Relay for Life occurs on an evening and happens over the course of 12 hours, from 6 pm to 6 am the next morning, but most people leave around midnight. The Northeastern Relay for Life was in Matthews Arena and there was a “track” (it really just was an oval of tape on the ground) over the floor that was used to cover the ice rink. Around the track there are tables with activities that are run by all kinds of organizations and all the profits are given to the Relay for Life.

            I went to Relay for Life because my fraternity (Pi Kappa Phi) needed a big appearance since we are brand new to Northeastern. We set up a table that we called “Chuck a Husk” in which we had these tiny stuffed huskies that people had to throw into a board with holes in them. If they scored enough points, they got to keep their little husky. This was all really fun, and there were so many people there it was almost overwhelming.

            At midnight, the Relay for Life Organization set up a heart-wrenching presentation about how cancer has affected so many people’s lives, and this almost made me cry. After the presentations, though, every was leaving for the night except the brave few that were hubristic enough to attempt the whole stay. I don’t truly understand why I decided to.

            After the presentation, when everyone started to go, it just felt wrong leaving after watching that. So I decided I’d stay for an hour or two more with a couple of my brothers from the fraternity. Suddenly the arena felt so much emptier. By two am, I started to feel tired myself, and so I started walking the track just to keep myself going; that was with four hours to go. Despite how late it was there were only about 11 of my brothers left here, and I felt the need to stay.

            Four in the morning was when we all got delusional. Walking in circles when you’re that tired is hypnotizing, but sitting down without falling asleep was impossible. The game of musical chairs that the organization set up was thrilling, but didn’t make a dent in my drowsiness. But I could not give up. I was one of the 9 Pi Kapps left at that point and I had made it this far I was never going to leave. So I just kept walking.

            The music that was blasting saved us I think. As I was walking with my brothers and some fun songs came on we just started dancing. In fact almost everyone left in the building was just dancing and yelling along to the music because we just stopped caring. When six am rolled around, I made the quickest escape from the building, trekked through what seemed to be a blizzard and just passed out in my bed.