Beer and burgers

at Sherlock and Watson pub. Damn good after a fairly relaxed Monday - 'twas my birthday dinner from Gabe. Being 21 is awesome!

Last Monday was my b-day, and a few days later John and I were wandering around on one of the nice sunny days that are slowly becoming more common around here - we were wondering what to do, walked by Sig Ep and saw them chilling on couches outside and drinking. We were like, damn! That looks like a good idea, but we don't really want to hang out there. What to do? Walk a bit more, and then suddenly - "Wait a minute. I can buy alcohol!" The best realization ever on a beautiful day with nothing to do! Chilled in my room with the windows open and drank Coronas. Wonderful.

This weekend was pretty sweet - Friday night was this crazy party at Allisahn's, with rad jam session with ummmm whatshisface from GZ. Kind of unexpected - those Ground Zero kids are alright, but mostly the venue serves as musical masturbation for them. Anyways, then Saturday we randomly mobbed over to Rhode Island and visited some folks at RISD. Alex and Kris were seeing this show, and Kris said, hey, come along with us! So Mulletor and John and I were like ROAD TRIP! WOOO!

Chilled out and drank some beers with John's buddy Amanda, and I called up Nick Simpson, who I haven't seen in forever, so that was rad! Caught up and stuff while Alex and Kris saw the show (some band called Wolf Parade), and then when they got back, we went to a party. Apparently, the RISD kids had just got back from break, so they were partying like all get-out. This place was packed, and we danced a bit and chilled. Got to be a little much, so we were outside getting some air when this girl comes out of nowhere screaming John's name! I guess he knows her from home (Long Island) and so she led us to another party, which was even *more* crowded - didn't think it was possible!

This second place was awesome, tho - this wide hallway between the kitchen and living room/balcony, with no ceiling, just straight up to the roof - so on the beams on either side of the hall, there were people perched and looking down on the mass of people below. Cool vibe. Mostly just sat around, cause we didn't know anyone, but all the people at both parties were artsy hipster types, which I was digging cause I'm getting sick of engineers constantly. I do think that I would get sick of just artsy types alla time, too. Just nice to get away.

Anyway, we got back at like 4 am. Pretty sweet random road trip!

Oh yeah, and capoeira is rad as well - we started learning the instruments, finally. I'm learning some songs, so I can sing the verses in Portuguese, not just the choruses. Sweet! I'm so much more into it because of the energy from the music. My birthday roda (tradition: you play everyone in the class in a row. Phew!) was easier than I thought it was gonna be, cause I was catching the energy of the roda. Nice! On Friday we participated in Cultural Cookoff, which is where all the minority groups around campus make a bunch of food from their countries of origin. We made some DELICIOUS Brazilian food, and it went damn fast. Got some pics and video of that, which will doubtless show up on the site in a while (here). Fun! Tasty!

Cannot WAIT to be home in like a month! Summer should be awesome as always! Damn. One final thing - I've had the song "Bands With Managers" stuck in my head for a while now, by Pedro The Lion. Check out the album!

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Dig:

Pedro The Lion - Achilles Heel

Dear Diary,

today was incredible. All this time I was thinking that RPI had some sort of ill-will aura that all the students were on, but today changed all that. It was a-MAZINGLY beautiful outside. Good God! Everyone was all smiles, lovin' the weather. It's just this crazy 180º switch from the usual poker faces around here. The cumulative effect of everyone smiling was just nuts. So much happiness!

I skipped math class, cause I ace the tests anyway, and hucked a disc around with John. Blissed out and being a dirty hippie in the sun...then work study, sitting in a basement for 3 hours while the sunlight slowly dies. DAMN. No windows, neither! It was all right, tho - always dead there, so I messed around with a little stop-motion animation and played some videogames and that. Got out at 5 and played some more hippie games - hackysack this time - with my RA, Glenn. John wandered up and we got some food, played pool, then nap-time. 2 hours of rest and I'm back on my feet again, to check out my man Kevin's show at TEP. He ROCKED it! I was grooving off it so bad - what he's doing is rap with a live band. Killer MC. Chilled out for a bit after the show, and now I'm back home listening to Nas and getting ready to go to SLEEP! Hope y'all enjoyed your day as well - peace!

-Jesse Freedom