A frat party, an improv show, and finally...a celeb!

Yes, I know, I've been neglecting you. It's cruel, leaving you hanging with an open end like that, leaving you guessing and wondering what went on. It's callous of me to be so inconsiderate: 4 whole days and no update! I repent, I do, and so, a long account for today.

First of all, the frat party I got so dressed up for (I saw Ella on the street, and she seriously did not recognise me). Was it worth it, you ask, was it all frat parties are cranked up to be? Well...that depends on what you expect. The evening started promising enough: the party was in Santa Monica, and we were driven there in...real yellow school busses! Seriously, they would not be a good idea to implement in the Netherlands, normal Dutch people would most definitely bump their heads. In the bus, we came to realize two things. One, people were already wasted going to the party. Two: Americans are very, very loud when drunk, and think they're very funny.

One other observation came to join the previous two when we arrived at the club, which looked curiously empty because it was too big for the number of people there. Three: even when they're adults, or should be, Americans still dance in sex-simulating ways, you know, like fifteen year old high schoolers think is cool to do. The thing is, that kind of dancing is disturbing enough when it's teenagers, but when it's skinny sluttily dressed girls with older, 0ften long-haired, sleazy-looking guys, it's ten times worse. You feel sorry for the girls, really, waking up in the morning not just with a terrible hangover, but also with the realizationg that, shit, did I actually do that?

Sylvia, Bridig and I weren't drunk, not even really tipsy (we'd had one or two drinks each, something like that), and being a sober observer was...interesting. But not for two long. At one point, we actually sat down, told each other we'd just each pick one guy to hit on...and stayed silent for a long, long time. Oh, there were a couple of cute guys, but they either had their tongue down a very skinny skanky girl with perfect hair, or were surrounded by a swarm of them.

Sylvia made the remark on her blog that it's annoying how at these parties, everyone categorize girls and boys so strictly. To girls, other girls are competition, and guys are the goal, and vice versa for the guys. It's depressing, really, to be reduced to the equation of your genitals and outer appearance. I'm glad that at house parties, you can actually just have good conversations sometimes, with girls ánd guys, and yes, sometimes there's an ulterior purpose involved there too, you can't just shut of hormones after all, but at least there "hooking up" isn't the only goal, just a possible side advantage.

Conclusion: no more frat parties for me. Oh, it was nice, I'm glad I went and had that experience, but once was enough.

This time, after getting only about 4 hours of sleep in the night from Thursday to Friday, I did the wise thing: I did go to my classes on Friday, but I took a nap in the afternoon. Sylvia, Maria and some other people went clubbing on Friday night, and actually it was very convenient: not being 21 yet, it gave me a very good excuse to spend the evening on the couch, watching Tv, drinking some of the leftover wine from my party. Boring? Yes, but boring can be wonderful sometimes.

Saturday I spent the day as a true lazy pig. I think I saw three movies that day, managed, somehow, to do some reading during (I am done with all my reading for Film and TV this quarter, and only have ten pages to go until the end of my Genetics book), played some stupid games on my laptop, chatted quite elaborately with my dad and Birgit...

At night, I met up with a big group of people at the gypsy café. Most of them ate there, but seeing how it's a café where people smoke hooka (is that spelled this way?), i.e. flavored tobacco smoked with a water pipe, I didn't think it was such a great idea for me to soend a lot of time there. We went to "Ultimate Improv" a small improvisational comedy club (I think the room fit about 30 people) to watch their show. It was very funny, a bit too much acting for my taste, but amuzing. They weren't as good as the people from Boom Chicago (who obviously have had more experience), but it was interesting being much closer to them, much more like you were really involved in the show and not just watching it.

There was a party on Midvale, we heard, and that's where we went next. It was loud and strange, and soon got broken up by the cops because two guys were stupid enough to smoke pot outside. I actually felt sorry for them, despite their stupidity: the cops, big and broad-shouldered and with those huge flashlights, put handcuffs on them and lectured to them while they had to face the wall, and I think they actually got taken to the station.

We moved to Maximó's, and I actually had my first encounter with a burly American policeman: James and I went to my apartment to get the leftover alcohol, and while we'd been careful enough in that James (who's 21) was carrying the alcohol and I only had the grenadine, apparently if you carry alcohol around it doesn't just have to be closed: it needs to still be sealed. We got off with a warning though.

I ended up staying at Maximó's until four thirty, just talking (mostly about religion), watching part of "Waking Life", walking to Subway's in the middle somewhere to try my first sub. I just can't get used to the fact that bread used for sandwiches here is soft, not crispy. I miss ciabatta's and baguette bread.

This morning I met Claire, a physics classmate, at Starbucks to work on a physics problem. A set of problems, a really special set of problems: the teacher predicted that it would take us about two weeks to do it, but if we managed it we'd get full credit on the final. A challenge, then, that we gladly took. We worked on it for almost four hours in total, I think, and I think we finished more than half of it. Woo!

Now, a small explanation about the why of our location: we chose Starbucks partly because of the big tables and the fact that they let you sit there forever with one cup of coffee, but also because the Starbucks is right next to the theater where Robots was to premiere that afternoon. The result: my first celebrity sighting, and not just of any celebrity, no no, I got to witness (from a certain distance, true) the gorgeousness that is Ewan McGregor. Woo. Another LA experience I can cross of my list. Oh, true, it would be nice to see a celeb in the wild too, but for now I'm satisfied. As to Sylvia, she got an opportunity to show Brigid and Maximo the correct opportunity to say Godverdomme: Maria called her to say that on Thursday, Orlando Bloom and Colin Farrell had been in the same club as them. So close, and yet so far away...

The phone call came when we were driving to the LA Convention Center, where Jordan and Tristan were set to graduate from their five-day learn-to-love-yourself, face-your-fears, new-agey "mastery in Transformational Training" course. We didn't quite know what to expect, speculated about brainwashing cults and virgin sacrifices. It turned out to be mostly much crying and even more hugging, but luckily our friends had not changed so much that we didn't recognise them any more.

Alright then, you're all up to speed again. Weekends are nice...they help you face the thought of another dreadfully draining week.

Goodnight unto you all!

Hedwig