Back In Business--Sort of

I've reinstalled my blog yet again because some stuff wasn't working. Much of the stuff is working again, but a few things are still broken.

In recent news, this weekend has been negatively terrible: let me start from the beginning. I stayed at school all day until about 9 PM friday to play with Pep Band. The three hours between the end of school and call-time were less than riviting, but I got a fair amount of calculus homework completed. We played at the women's basketball game against Lincoln, in which Wilson lost fairly decisively. I have, however, decided that these Pep Band events are perfect for doing homework. I can crank out some integrals while taking relaxing breaks to play or occasionally watch the game. Anyway, Jonathan Kadish found me and coerced me into going to karaoke with him, Leeor, Irene, Liz, Pat (Irene's exchange student from Thailand), and Jorge (Leeor's exchange student from Costa Rica), after the conclusion of the game. Ian Rocker was supposed to come, but decided to conveniently avoid all modes of communication by which we attempted to contact him.

If the matter ever comes up again, remind me never to do karaoke. We had to drive all the way out to some remote suburb to get to this odd-smelling, Korean karaoke establishment, which--I must add--was in the basement of a building, accesible only through a hard-to-find entrance. The 25 degree F temperature rendered the situation lugubriously frigid. To top it all off, I had to pay $6 for this wasted time. Considering that the size of the Korean music selection dwarfed that of the English by a ratio of about 5:1, I was somewhat disappointed. Actually no, "disappointed" is entirely the wrong term. Perhaps I should say that my cynicism caused by singing bad pop music was only enlarged.

After that, we were going to go home, but Irene's exchange student Pat wanted to go to Voodoo Doughnuts (conveniently open from 10 PM to 10 AM), which happens to be located downtown. So we drove all the way back from this environ to Burnside. We had been driving in two cars since two groups of people had converged on the karaoke parlor, but we stopped at Jon's house along the way to consolidate into a single vehicle. Since Jon and I were planning to get together to do calculus and go to see "21 in Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com" at Portland Center Stage the following day (this Saturday), I just left my backpack and trumpet in his car at his house. Finally, we found parking and made it to this Voodoo Doughnuts place. I must say that it is a rather interesting business for both its model of operation and its physical character.

When we arrived, the place was packed such that there was standing room only. The fact that it is one of the only gastronomical establishments operating at that hour and allowing minors means that they undoubted do a bang-up business. The physical character is what one would expect from the name: rather odd and small with very strange and creative doughnuts. Although my consumption doughnuts usually induces severe stomach cramping, I did manage to successfully eat a small one without discomfort. While Jon was playing their organ, we watched as Pat, the exchange student from Thailand, ate one and a half massive doughnuts: it was one of the most disgusting things I've seen in a long time. Apparently doughnuts do not exist in Thailand. Upon leaving, we stopped a grocery store to pick up some rice for a meal that Jorge was cooking for Leeor, and then went home.

This doesn't sound so bad yet, but then again, this account only takes us up to about 1 AM Saturday. When I woke up Saturday morning, a solid sheet of ice had frozen over everything, and freezing rain was still coming down. At it's thickest, the ice sheet was about 5 mm. So, it goes without saying that I was completely trapped in my house. I nearly killed myself going out to get the newspaper. This wouldn't have been so bad, had all of my stuff not been trapped at Jon's house, about a mile away. Driving was definitely out of the question, as was walking, so I was left without a trumpet and without any schoolwork. We had to reschedule our tickets for the play, which wouldn't have been so bad had I not needed to go to some kind of literary event for an assignment for school. After significant searching, I finally was able to get tickets for a series for four playlets tonight (one of which, was incidentally written by someone I know from school), hoping that the ice would thaw by then. But basically, I spent all of Saturday trapped inside with nothing to do, not even reading, since my book was in my backpack.

Today, finally, the ice started to thaw, and I was able to get my stuff back, and go to the series of four playlets called "The Cold Comedy Concoction" (Highly recommended, $10 for students, Stark Raving Theatre in NW). I still have to do a ton of work (ten more integrals, a short paper, a bunch of reading, some Spanish, and some physics), but at least I now have my stuff and a free day tomorrow because of Martin Luther King Day. Sigh...