Back at School

Whew, I'm back!

I promised you pictures and I do indeed have them. An example is the new one on the head of this blog ^^^
getting a bunch of them on this blog in a slideshow however seems to be a problem. I get it to work, and some are uploading, but then they never finish :( I will try my hardest though to get this corrected.

So here was my weekend. I must warn you first that I am going to tell everything here. I contemplated leaving things out; but then this blog would be a lie and I couldn't write in here anymore if I couldn't trust my own writings. The truth always must be told no matter who is listening.

I wrote to you last as I was packing after the President's Inauguration. We grabbed our bags and divided into two vans: Paul, Jen, Joyce, Alex, and Matt in one, and Tom, John, Paula, Eric, and I. Being in a MiniVan again somehow felt like home. The beginning of the trip was pretty loud. Eric is a very odd person. He acts like a third grader, talking about farting, family guy, and pretending to be a pedophile. This of course influenced everyone else to act like little kids.

They all fell asleep pretty quickly though, and I did some of my homework. I then decided to take pictures, and was chided by Tom for actually taking pictures. He said there was nothing in Iowa to take pictures of. I ignored him and took pictures in my usual method: took as many as possible in the hopes that something good would be produced. It of course worked, and I captured pictures of an amazing sunset and the surrounding farmlands.

Thats all Iowa is. No one was joking at all. Farmlands, Cows, Silos, and Corn. That is it. 90% of every person we drove past was old as hell, and some had bumperstickers, most of them conservative as hell. Like "The Commandments are the REAL Laws of the land." I kid you not.

We arrived at our hotel four hours later, with clear bug smears all across the windshield (there was no cleaner fluid in the windshield wipers.) There were three rooms: two with two queen sized beds, and one with a king. Matt, Paul, Alex, and I (being the freshman men) all had a room to ourselves. Still acting like kids going through puberty, they giggled at stupid stuff still. Matt and I shared a bed while Alex and Paul did the same.

I was a little hesitant about this. I scolded myself and got it into my head that I was going to be professional. I was not going to be the type of guy who would make someone uncomfortable.

Do you know how hard it is to try and not think about something? I did not sleep like a log. Right as I was drifting again into unconsciousness--he rolled over fully asleep, and his arm fell onto my shoulder. And then, in a seemingly second-natured action, he started rubbing his hand up and down my arm three times. And then his hand rested there, heavily.
There sat his hand solidly and so clearly not a dream. In the morning it was clear that he was not conscious of what had happened.

We had three matches on Saturday. The pool, like all the buildings at Grinnell University, was made entirely out of bricks. It was unlike any other pool I had seen. The first match was true pain. I was so tired, all I wanted was to eat and fall asleep. Two hours later, the next match began. I sat out the first quarter, and miraculously energy came to me to play the rest of the game. The third game, an hour and a half later, happened the same. Our second game was probably our best, even though we lost all three. Our team has 10 people. All the others have about 20 and 30. I did not do very well with the ball, but I am an excellent defender. I could swim as fast as any opponent I had.

Tired, we all went back to the hotel. Everyone was planning on going to a party submissively hosted by the Grinnell Players. Everyone wanted to get totally smashed. I clearly defined that I didn't want to drink, and that I was too tired to want to go to the party. I was really too emotionally drained from their childish actions. They never took anything seriously; like when we were supposed to shout out our name for our team, we shouted out "Broccoli" instead. ha. haha. ha.

Surprisingly, they respected that. Even more surprisingly, they acted sad that I wasn't coming. Like I was somehow a part of the group, one that fit in. Like my sarcastic comments to their previous stupid humor was just another joke. That got to me.

They came back, loudly of course, and I stopped doing my homework. They said the party sucked and I didn't miss anything. We went to bed and this time I slept like the biggest, most tired feeling log of all.

We played our last game in the morning, it being against the host team; Grinnell. Of course they creamed us. But it was still fun. I was in a better mood, and everything seemed like it was better. I laughed with the others, and made jokes that weren't placid threats confused for sarcasm. Life was good and we were going home; or whatever it can be called.

Halfway home, after playing car games like hangman, etc., and sleeping, we stopped at a gas station. Paul bought porn that was in the mart-thing. Of course it was funny to them, but I made a note not to shake his hand for a while.

That was the Tournament weekend :) We have another one this weekend :(, and swimming starts this wednesday. I am going to be dead lol.

GOOD NIGHT! zzzZZzz

Neil