News just in on my phone

So! It's been about 3 weeks.

The mystery of "which asshole stole my phone?" has been solved!

If you don't remember what happened, basically, I was incredibly stupid and left my coat unattended on a chair at the National Tennis Center a couple weeks ago, and one of the cleaning ladies ended up stealing my phone and all of the money in my wallet. Fortunately, she was not too bright either, as she picked up my coat and moved it to a different location while doing this, allowing the management at the tennis center to figure out who stole my shit after I filed a police report. The police ended up getting my phone back, but I needed to buy a new one anyway because the lady seemed to have smashed it with a hammer or something like that.

(maybe she ran it over with a car??)

Anyway, now everything has gotten all official and I got a letter from an assistant to the DA in Queens. I'm part of an official court case! Maybe it'll go on to become one of those iconic Supreme Court Decisions like Brown v. Board of Education or Marbury v. Madison and future American high school students will have to learn about me. Probably not because it's just a minor felony and will be handled in a small court, but anything is possible, right? At least I'll end up getting paid a restitution fee from the lady that clearly broke my phone (she claims it was "like that already").

I'll let you know if I end up going to court.

Pandora is amazing

Ok. Pandora radio has to be the most glorious thing ever. Whoever created it is a genius because it's algorithm for finding music it thinks you would like is incredibly accurate; I have discovered so many new artists and songs that I have fallen completely in love with. Unfortunately, since I'm a loser and have moral qualms about downloading stuff illegally, I must wait until I have money to be able to purchase all of these songs on iTunes. I also am just too lazy to search for and crop photos to be the cover art for the music I would download.

http://www.pandora.com/

Yay Pandora

Help me, I'm a Recluse

Some jerk-face stole my phone today. I was at the National Tennis Center for a JTT tournament (we have regional championships next month, and I promise to take pictures!) and mistakenly left my coat on a chair when I went to play on the courts. When I came back an hour-and-a-half later, my coat was gone. I eventually found it, only to discover my iPhone was no longer in my coat pocket and all the money was drained from my wallet. I wasn't even comforted by the fact that my team won our match, because only one person from the other team actually showed up, so we won by default.

So I guess you can say it was a pretty fun day.

I've now had to learn how to function with almost no contact with the outside world, and it's proven to be very difficult. I habitually will stick my hand into my pocket to grab my phone and realize it isn't there, and I can no longer call or text people. Taking the train home was very interesting because I actually had to use my imagination to keep myself entertained, rather than listening to music.

Luckily I should be getting a new phone on Monday. I will also be going to file a police report with my father. But I really shouldn't complain because my life could be a lot worse than it is.

Who knew you could have nightmares of Charlize Theron?

I've recently gotten into the habit of watching incredibly dramatic/upsetting films before I go to bed. This has proven to be a bad choice.

One would think I would've learned my lesson after watching Changeling on Netflix with my mom in 6th grade. It was an amazing movie, but you don't exactly want to think about a string of child kidnappings/murders right before you go to bed, especially if you live in an old house that creaks at night. For months I would have to tuck my whole face under the covers in order to feel safe from having my head hacked off by the serial killer that I was certain was hiding in my closet.

As I normally consider myself a comedy type of guy, serious movies are already stepping over my usual boundaries. I know I am not good at putting traumatizing or saddening things out of my head (demonstrated by what was said in the previous paragraph), so my choices are normally limited to movies with incredibly poor acting, anything with Tina Fey, or Last Holiday with Queen Latifa (the only film Fox will ever play on a Sunday night). But I guess I've been getting in touch with my inner actor as of recently (I did, in fact, star as Charlie Brown in the school play in 3rd grade), so I've felt inclined to see performances that garnered media attention. Today I watched Precious and Monster, which both included Academy Award-winning performances (also who knew Charlize Theron could be that hideous?), but are by no means "feel good" movies. My plan for tonight is to stay up so late that I just pass out, so I don't need to worry about hookers shooting me to get my cash or an abusive mother throwing pans at me. I'll let you know how it goes.

Sorry

So a lot is going on right now and is preventing me from being as devoted to this blog as I would like to be.

First of all, school is annoying. My chemistry teacher has stepped up her game and is now giving us daily quizzes, which is a hassle because that means I need to study every night because there is no possible way that I will remember how to determine the grams of a substance produced in a limiting precipitate reaction without studying and receive a perfect score on the quiz without divine intervention. Also it's the third trimester so teachers are cramming in everything they've neglected to teach earlier so that they finish covering the curriculum by the time finals start (i.e. my theology teacher, who in the first trimester covered 70 of the 400+ pages of one of the two textbooks we need to read this year).

I was planning to write a lot over February break, but I ended up not doing so. I feel I owe you an explanation, and I'll be completely honest: I was simply too busy sleeping. The weeks leading up to the break were really exhausting so I found I just slept for hours once the break started. I did, however, go to a party and a dance which I need to write about later. I have some free time no so hopefully I can use that to write and upload some pictures.

Sorry that I've been lame.

Fruit Rull-Up Man

I met an interesting man last week...

While I was walking to my choir's church to sing to 30 elderly people (8 of whom actually showed up...) an extremely tall, rather portly, man approached me. At first I thought he needed help, but then he stuck out his hand to shake mine. It incredibly sweaty and obviously he wanted something based on how tightly he grasped my hand. I then noticed the myriad of fruit roll-ups overflowing from his coat pocket.

"Do you wanna buy some fruit roll-ups to sponsor a children's basketball team"

I did not, in fact, want to purchase any fruit roll-ups, especially from this man. And rather than saying "No" upfront and walking away, I instead let out a painful groan, similar to the sound one would expect a sick man to make, or Tina from Bob's Burgers. I also was not buying the whole "children's basketball team" thing either, as I was practically mugged by a woman in 8th grade who "needed to get home to Long Island".

I think the man sensed my weakness of character and decided to go into full-out attack mode:


"Come on dude, it's for the kids." (clearly trying to make me feel bad for not buying anything, and growing increasingly frustrated with me, demonstrated through his vigorously pulsating red eyes)

"No I'm sorry I have to go" (the words most likely did not come out that clearly, as I am a jumbled mess under pressure. I then proceeded to walk in the direction of the church)

"It's ok I'll follow you" (weird much?)

I let out another sickly groan and managed to spit out "No" while violently thrashing my head. Clearly sensing that I wasn't going to waver nor communicate clearly, the man proclaimed "Stop acting like a fucking retard" and left.

I think the man needs to realize that people will be more likely to purchase his fruit roll-ups (or whatever else he may sell) if they didn't feel like they were going to be murdered.

At least I got 33 likes on my Facebook status.

Blizzard

So there's currently a huge snowstorm that's sweeping the Northeast of the US. Ironically, the blizzard is named "Nemo," which takes away from the sense that this storm is some ferocious monster that will trap you and your family inside for days.

My school also stayed open today, since the storm was not supposed to get bad until the late afternoon/evening. I sat in bed in disbelief for an hour, constantly refreshing the school webpage on my iPhone thinking that maybe they had forgotten to update it. But they didn't. I eventually had to drag myself out of bed and go to school. I could not find a pair of jeans for 15 minutes and failed to find a clean pair of socks (however I did manage to find about 5 million individual socks) so I had to resort to using an old pair covered in cat fur. I also had to skip breakfast to avoid being late.

I ended up walking through Central Park after taking the train because the line for the bus was (I kid you not) at least 25 yards (or 22.86 meters for you metric system people). The walk takes literally 10 minutes so I don't understand why others did not decide to do that instead of waiting for the bus which was undoubtedly packed and incredibly gross. It was so snowy that the normally clear and beautiful view in the center of the park just looked like empty space.

(I'll add a picture of what the spot is normally like to show just how bad the storm was)


My school had decided to let us out at 1:50 instead of the usual 2:50, which basically doesn't even count as an early dismissal. I guess enough people complained (plus the school probably looked at the Weather Channel) that the principal eventually decided to let us out at 12:50. This was good because it gave me an additional hour to do absolutely nothing with.

The blizzard is supposed to continue into tomorrow, but it seems to have died down a lot. I don't think I'll be getting any days off next week.