25/01/01-almost 2 weeks...unfortunately not much to report...had to buy a cd burner on emergency after i ran out of hard drive space...so i burnt about a gig or so's worth of stuff off there...bought a hockey stick and gloves so now i can start to learn how to play...well i mean i know how to play, i just dont have any skills of my own yet. last friday was just an end to a mildy crappy week...wouldnt say i've given up on the rishona thing (yeah, that pops back up), but i'm backing off cause as far as i can tell, she's not interested in much of anything in the social way...either that or something's just plain awkward between us. so the floor was gonna go out and started drinkin before...as for me, so did i...i had about a quarter bottle of vodka in about 2 hrs before we were gonna go to brutopia. and just as i was getting my shoes on and go out with them, i ducked back in my room, shut the door, lied down on my bed and threw up 4 times on my carpet about 5 min later. then went to sleep. woke up in the morning, threw up 4 more times, went back to sleep, woke up with headache, went to breakfast with matt...

that would be the same day as george w bush's inauguration. to which i missed and didnt care. like many other americans up here, i contemplate canadian citizenship and dont know whether i take myself seriously on the issue or not. i mean you give up the right to vote in the states, even if it is a fucked system. george w has already gone too far right on all his policies, from a uniter to a divider, particularly with ashcroft's nomination. star wars? forget about it. as we discussed in international relations, one's defensive security is another's offence. star wars means that the chinese, who have not many nukes, would feel threatened that their superpower status as a nuclear country would be destroyed by star wars, even if it is for nukes from "rogue countries." abortion...? well no kidding let's go pro-life and cut gov't funding for abortion clinics, etc...school vouchers? that ain't the answer. the environment? sure, let's unsign the land that clinton signed into protection and carve that baby up for oil. i mean hey, as if we havent created enough greenhouse gases to raise the avg earth's temp...dead is the third way and left-centrist politics with the bush administration. smug, arrogant little man who has gone too far right already...i suppose thats why he wont get elected another term...

in other news, after rereading the course book a short while ago, i realized i cant currently be on academic probation, since they dont assess your gpa til after the winter semester. which is confusing here cause most schools its fall/spring, but here its fall/winter. so somehow it got past us (and the stupid advisor who shoulda known that they didnt assess til after winter) that i'm not assessed til the year is over. now granted, i need to bring my gpa up drastically to be safe (.03 to be on satisfactory standing again), but i'm technically not on probation. so its also a good thing for my uconn co-op credits cause otherwise, i'm a course behind on my core requirements, now that i had to drop the class.

as for how my classes are going...well, polisci is going well, i'm liking both the classes, although the IR class tends to be a little boring. but we're finally getting to deal with the actual comparative politics and what not, not just some introduction to what case studies are or whatever. the conferences for those have been primarily dominated by second or third year francophones, but they both promise to be intriguing. religions of east asia is really good. prof hori is a great guy, good sense of humor, very informative, i like his style...now we're learning about the confucian analects, so that's pretty cool. and religion of ancient israel. that's a good class, and i like prof chadwick, but i'm not too fond. maybe its just cause someone non-jewish is teaching the class, there's some objectivism that bothers me...like when he refers to G-d as YHWH...like gentiles dont have a problem doing that, even in a religious context, but i do cause we never refer to Her as YHWH...or like today when he was talking about circumcision as sexual mutilation. i dunno...regardless of its cleanliness or whatever...first of all, its a visceral piece of skin that has no function. its not like castration (even though nikhil might beg to differ). second, its a religious custom symbolizing abraham's covenant with G-d...its not like its painful or anything and the person who does it is trained at his job. and since the baby's 8 days old and now they use anesthetic, its not like the baby even knows what goes on...i mean hell, i didnt know what circumcision actually meant til i was maybe 6, let alone have had it done to me when i was 8 days old... just some weird quirky things that've bothered me in the class. but i'm writing my term paper on the dead sea scrolls and since i've been there at the shrine of the book to see the scrolls, it should really be interesting....

so other than the guest lecture i saw tonight on the long term affects of humans in simulated space isolation, that basically brings us to this weekend, which is super bowl weekend on sunday...go giants (even though i havent been a fan since i stopped really caring about any pro football around 94-95 except for the super bowl). and saturday night is floor progression II...should be fun again...last time had ended up playing drinking games as a floor til you're drunk and then not being able to even make it to the bar and smoking in jons room with 15/36 of the floor including jared II...i have a feeling thats what this one's turning into, although there's a "luau" down at rvc, but i bet we're all gonna be too whacked out to go, even if cole thinks thats what's gonna happen...maybe earlier in the day i'll also get to play some hockey for once....wow, for not having anything to say, i sure had a lot to say...pick up renata's she walked with kings...excellent cd...which reminds me, i have to burn the outkast album...

14/01/01 and 11/01/01-wow, its been a fun few days...monday, more classes. tuesday, more classes. i finally couldnt get into my popular music since 1945 class, so now i'm taking the religion of ancient israel. basically it's a course that studies the history of judaism through the bible. so the text book basically goes through the entire tanakh and analyses the history in it. its interesting because they're talking about the historical creation of the torah and some of the stuff i've never heard about, like documentary hypothesis, which says that 4 different sources wrote the torah...interesting...maybe i'll go back to a jewish studies minor nonetheless...finally sometime tuesday, i get a call from julian saying they're in, but that jeff and carl are at the strip club (where they spent much of their visit), so i head down to crescent street to meet them and stop at the saq to get a mickey of bacardi limon. good stuff. so julian ended up drinking like, half of it and the rest of us had some. finally decided to eat at mamma's for the poutine, so we hike all the way up to my room first, and everyone else is basically tipsy and we then head out to mammas. after mammas, we walked st. laurent to the metro, took it back to their hotel stop. julian and i went to madhatters and then jeff and carl came after going to the hotel to shower and crap. so they came, we did a few shots, and then headed to cheers for a few more. carl pounded 5 shots of yeager in a row and some people were doing cheesy karaoke. so we took off and i tried to think of where people would be on a tuesday night. angels. so we went there, had a few more, were pretty intoxicated and danced with some women, even though not all of them wanted to dance with us :P i tell you, the changed one on the trip was jules though. even he was dancing away. but we went back home, the complete wrong way, jeff peed in a phone booth on the street corner as traffic was passing and came back, blah blah blah.

woke up for a nice early wednesday class, came back, slept more and then chilled after, so while i was at class, they went to the saq, picked up a mickey of absolut, jack daniels, captain morgans, and a 750 of jagermeister. after the game, instead of calling me to go out, they went back and the 3 of them hit all the booze except for the JD. apparently carl drank all the jager. bad bad bad. alright. for the first time in mine or anyone elses life, i heard the words "fuck it", "fuck you", "cunt", and "cock" come out of julian clark's mouth. holy shit was he gone. he was in one of those spinny chairs and was like "watch this..." spun out, and tipped over backwards. he was fuckin nuts. if i didnt think he was shitfaced on tuesday night, wednesday was definitely the complete kicker. so we decided to put him to sleep before going out. i found out tonight that it apparently wasnt too good a night for him after. no kiddin. anywho. so carl, jeff, and i go out to cheers and wait in line, carl puts his arms around girls, but i have to convince him that they dont want him. so i cant get in cause i need my coat checked and the coat check is full, so i leave them there and go to burger king on crescent and ste. catherine. 20 min later, who walks in? carl and jeff, apparently kicked out of the bar. apparently, carl was going down the line grabbing girls' "crotchal areas" (as dave likes to call it), and one girl's boyfriend was there and wanted to know what carl just did. carl "mr. 270 lbs, 3rd degree black-belt" gimbrone apparently then decked the guy in the face, and ran as the bouncer threw them out.

so we're sitting in burger king and who walks in? jake. apparently he was kicked out cause they thought he was gonna light the place on fire. i guess he ordered a drink en flambe and they didnt flambe it, so when he went to, they kicked him out. so jeff and carl leave for the hotel (but end up at winston churchhill's instead), and jake and i go to second cup. then jake wants fresh air, so he grabs the coffee in the mug, walks out and keeps going. i finish and leave, sobering up more on the way back.

jeff and carl were gonna stay over thurday night into friday, but decided not to; to drive home at night instead of the morning, so i went and saw them off as i went to dinner at bmh. mmm. visitors are nice. more people should come. i just need julians pictures. shame i didnt get to introduce them to more people... as for the rest of thursday, just more classes and the like, and a nice chat with my parents about what happens when the rest of my grades come, etc....

friday comes and i get all my grades back, with my last mark putting my gpa at 1.97, .03 under satisfactory standing. if it werent for logic and economics, i'd prolly have a 3 point average, but nope...why the hell did i take logic? what the hell was i thinking? so after meeting with an advisor, i talked about my schedule and i dropped a class like i'm supposed to and so hopefully with the classes i'm taking this semester combined with the reduced courseload of a class (another economics :P), i'll atleast be able to try to bring it safely above 2 point. the rest of friday was meeting with an advisor (being responsible for myself), talking to my parents, going to class and packing for our three day ski trip, which i just came back from.

let me say, it was an awesome trip. so friday after class, me, dave, and john go grocery shopping for food and then go back and pack, wait for the buses, etc. we finally leave around 630 and the guys in front of us drink the whole time. so between that and them getting stoned at the rest stop ("our guide was just ripping doobies with us!"), it made for a funny bus ride. twas a 3 hour bus ride to mont ste. anne, which is just northeast of quebec city. which made for a good, wholesome, quebecois time. its even more fun outside the city, cause thats where all the french influence is even more. like at the mcdonalds we stopped at tonight on the way home and no one spoke english but the manager. in montreal, everyone's bilingual like that. passed by montmorency falls, which i havent seen in 6 years, of course i hadnt seen quebec city in 6 years either. we also watched tommy boy there and back, so that's like the 12th time ive seen it in a month. we were reciting lines the whole movie, both ways.

got to our condo around 9ish and settled in. nice condo for the 3 of us (since mustafa had to back out last minute). kitchen, bath, bedroom, futon of some sort, etc...basically it was a chill out evening since we didnt know where anyone else was staying and there wasnt much to do. plus we wanted a somewhat early day of skiing saturday. saturday was great. we were out by around 1130 and by the time john rented his snowboard and we all got prepped up, we hit the slopes at 1230. awesome awesome skiing. luckily, dave and john and i all board/ski about the same level so no one was dragging too far behind that we were waiting continuously for each other. long lifts, but relatively short lines. snow was real nice, icy in some places, but not bad all around. hit mostly greens and blues, a small terrain park for the jumps, and stopped skiing around 8ish to catch the shuttle back to the condo. sat night was the party at the summit so we washed up, watched the fifth element on abc, and went out to catch the 1130 shuttle up to the gondola to get to the party. not a bad party, but as usual, the good looking girls are always dancing with someone else, and the skanky ones you dont want to dance with. so we jetted back after 2 1/2 hrs and a few drinks, came home, watched ferris bueller on tbs, then fast times at ridgemont high and passed out.

woke up today at 11 and we were supposed to check out by 1030 or get charged. we had a bit of cleaning to do, mainly in the kitchen. so we washed the dishes, but the dishwasher flooded and we didnt have time, so we left everything in it...they better not open it up :) finished packing up and checked out to shuttle back to the mountain at 1230. figured we'd try and get a few more runs in on the slopes before leaving. took the gondola up to the top, skiied down the back of the mountain, took the lift up, took the long way down the front of the mountain, did a few runs in the little terrain park, got some height, and headed back at 230. buses finally left around 430 and made a mcdonalds pit stop on the way home. and finally got home at 830ish. all in all, it was a really great weekend, havent skiied like that ever. we did about 10 hrs of skiing all weekend, which was really good, and i'm glad i've got some friends whom i could go to a mountain with and go at the same level, without anyone showing off too much. really gotta do it again sometime. rounded out probably one of the best two weeks since i've been here (with the exception of the grades)

so this week its back to class, back to work, and working my ass off so that i can get my gpa up. i'm sure i'll be able to do it, no problem because these are more arts courses, 2 polisci, 2 religious studies, and i'm about a B student when it comes to paper writing like this. just hopefully that'll be the case...for now, its time to settle in back home as i've got this nice little problem that'll be gnawing on my mind atleast until i get whatever grades back from this semester in april... oh yeah, i forgot tomorrow's MLK's birthday. good thing i looked on the calendar again...(what you get when you live in canada for so long...)

07/01/01-well yesterday wasnt too bad a day. pretty hedonistic...got up real late and didnt start my day for a while, which might have been a bad thing, but whatever. it was summer birthday day and my birthday buddy, kim, had decorated my door and whatnot so that was pretty freaky to wake up to. and then i thought my birthday buddy nat was dec 30 and that we were supposed to do it yesterday also, so when jon and jared 2 and i went to metro to go food shopping, we(i) decided to buy him some practical gifts, rather than the whole door decoration. so instead i got him this belgian chocolate "volcano," a box of durex condoms in the gold containers, and a copy of swank porno mag and a penthouse for me just cause i was going with the whole theme :) we then hit the saq and j2 bought a bottle of wine, jon bought a bottle of jose cuervo and i bought a bottle of absolut. good times...so we came back, hung out, played a lot more nhl 2001 on jons playstation 2 and nats birthday wasnt til jan 30, so he got his stuff early. later on, i cracked open the bottle of absolut and even though i was holding it til julian and co. come in 2 days, couldnt help it. so i had a couple of drinks of vodka and juice and finally the floor decided it was time to head to vol de nuit to celebrate summer birthdays. only dave's friend danny's in town, so they were gonna come with us. they were drinking before also, and so were a bunch of people on the floor (since you save money before you go to the bar), so it was dave, danny, john, and seth and we went to vol with everyone, but it was packed so they went to cafe de nuit and we stayed at vol. had some drinks there, left, went to le bifteck, had some drinks there, dave and danny hustled some people at pool, and we left to get some pizza slices at giovan's, where i was so tired i almost passed out. but we made it back to rez, hung out, talked for a while with a couple people on my floor and i finally made it to bed around 4am.

so now here i am today...dont think the book review's gonna get done cause i got other work and i cant get into those music classes i want. so now i dunno what i'm gonna do for my fifth course. gotta find something...fast...2 more days til julian and co. come. should be really fun, i'm psyched to have my first visitors and it'll be some good times at some of the local st. laurent establishments. now for some work....

05/01/01-not much happened today other than classes. dave's friend, danny, is here and i was invited to go out with them tonight, but i might go tomorrow since i wasnt feeling so well, plus i cant keep spending money on liquor for a week, particularly if i'm gonna go out with jeff carl and julian next week. nothing else doing other than i put up my review on my reviews page for the movie "requiem for a dream." excellent movie that i'd recommend to people, but it is definitely a movie only for mature minds (they were lucky they got it's nc-17 rating dropped to a not rated). its directed by darren aronofsky who did "pi" and it earned ellyn burstyn a golden globe nomination for her performance. excellent movie and extremely thought provoking. (side note- whoever came up with the phrase "everyone put your hands in the air and wave them like you just dont care" ?) tonight megan's coming up from more and we're gonna hang here and then tomorrow is prolly schoolwork (as to not get behind in classes, and i'll try and review chuck pahlaniuk's survivor: a novel.

04/01/01-hair all gone. baby butt smooth. yesterday was the first day of classes for the new semester. started off with 930 gov't and politics of the developed world. was a small class, but only first day after break. should be good, very interesting. mainly about the politics of europe. instructor is british so he's got one of those accents that makes you feel scholarly. my international politics of economic relations class was cancelled so i slept in adams aud for an hour before religions of east asia. that course seems like it'll be very interesting, but also a challenge. afterwards, i didnt do much but ended up getting the movie Pi on dvd. still one of the most bizarre movies i've ever seen. not a late night because i had an 830 class this morning. survey of music history from classical to 20th century. i think it was a course more for music majors, or music majors would understand better, or maybe i needed to take the preceding survey from last semester to know were we're picking off. and to wake up for an 830 class i'm not sure i'll do well at(particularly if i'm sleepy), its not worth it. so i might change. instead, i might try and get permission from the profs to either take history of popular music after 1945 or introduction to jazz (which is more historical/cultural based) and neither of them conflict with my schedule and are later in the afternoon so it makes it even better and also a little more interesting. speaking of jazz, ken burns' documentary starts on pbs on monday. its written up on the front cover of the life section in todays G&M. should be good. so after music, i went to shatner building to get breakfast. finished my book "survivor," by the author of fight club, chuck pahlaniuk. review should come up this weekend. then off to macroeconomics. of course i was freakin tired from waking up at 730 so i kept falling asleep, and as interesting as the prof was, he was also boring. so that was that. picked up some computer accessories but they didnt have ink cartridges so i'm still out. thats about where i'm at now...julian jeff and carl come up on tuesday so that'll be really cool to show people around. still unsure about jeff, but whatever. not like i've got a beef with him or anything...

i was talking to erin last night and realized how my page is formatted...its an open journal. people arent readers, they're observers into my life. couple people commented on some of the negative stuff thats happened, particularly in the year in review, but that's just it. if people are going to be observers, they're going to see the negative with the positive, otherwise i feel like my own journal becomes fake if i'm only happy. why should i censor my own life in my journal? this is the life i live--people just get to observe it online...

anywho...today was the release of the grammy nominations (Eligibility Year October 1, 1999 through September 30, 2000). without looking at any other reviews, here are my picks for the top categories (or atleast the ones i know...)

record of the year-this is a tough category because i could see the award given to anyone but destiny's child. u2's "beautiful day" is good, but i dunno, and madonna hasn't anything original going for her "music". n'sync shouldnt win this, although the RIAA does like a big act. unfortunately, tis isn't the billboard music awards, so i'm willing to say that the RIAA will pick macy gray's "i try." as much as we cant stand it, she's got a different voice, its very catchy, and brought somewhat of a retroflavor to the pop love dancey ballad genre

album of the year-unfortunately, i dont know all of the contenders in this category's music, but i have a feeling the battle will truly be between eminem and radiohead. for all his controversy (which is self-created through the media), his album isn't too bad and his musical backing tracks still have a unique flavour from alot of other rap acts. despite the vulgarity, all his songs tell some kind of story, be it fictional (as in "stan") or biographical ("the way i am"). each song is a microcosm of marshall mathers. radiohead's "kid a" is also a definite contender, although it might be a little avant-garde for the recording academy. my pick? "the marshall mathers lp"

song of the year-this is the one where we look at the actual songwriting itself. again macy gray could win. she, u2, and destiny's child were the only ones to write their own music, but "breathe" and "i hope you dance" are cool runners. its really tight in this category. who knows. this year might be the year of macy gray...

new artist-again, i dont know all of the artists here, but i have a feeling sisqo will win. "the thong song" was one of 2000's most catchy songs and you've got to admit, he does have a decent voice. as both performer and artist, he's got it going for him

female pop vocal performance-they chose to pick one of christina aguilera's mediocre vocal songs (shoulda picked "i turn to you" or if they wanted more poppy, "come on over") so she wont get it and it would be sick if they gave it to britney for her whiny dog voice. we've got madonna's "music" again, not the best and not the most vocal madonna song. amiee mann could win for "save me" and joni mitchell is back in the picture, but again, my bet goes to macy gray as she has that flavor they seem to like.

male pop vocal performance-i havent heard any of these songs, but a lot of times its not just the song, its the name. ricky martin would be a sad win, don henley and sting aren't the best, so that leaves it up to brian mcknight and marc anthony. i think brian mcknight writes good music and sings really well, however the RIAA is probably looking for marc anthony with his sweet but bouncy love song. besides, this should be the year latin starts to fizzle out like neo-swing did.

pop vocal album-again, if britney wins, its all over, but my pick goes to nsync's "no strings attached." its sales were off the roof and the album was a nice blend of pop and ballads, even if justin timberlake is the one who steals their show. unfortunatey, the riaa is trying to get in the new generation, both with its members and its audience, and acts like don henley and steely dan probably wont get much attention.

rock album-vote goes to no doubt's "return of saturn." no doubt. the contenders in this category are pretty decent (though wasnt californication eligible?) and the album itself has been critically acclaimed as a worthy followup to their successful "tragic kingdom." unfortunately album sales didnt agree. foo fighters might have had a chance, but this is probably a safer bet.

alternative music album-i havent heard it, but how did paul mccartney get in here? odds of him winning are slim, but here's where my bet goes to radiohead. beck's album is good (although both of them are a little far out there for traditional "alternative" music), but radiohead put out a solid, albeit eerie, album with "kid a"

rap album-since this category was added as a legitimate genre in the early 90s, its changed a lot from the early wins of the fresh prince. unfortunately, with so much talent in mainstream rap, this is probably one of the hardest categories for me to call. the artistry is really good, with eminem looking for another win and dmx being a relatively good contender with his rough growly voice. back in is jay-z and old school dr. dre. but nelly is a complete newcomer to the music industry and his country grammer is really catchy with its sweet sounding, not too heavy beats and weird medium-hi pitched voice. his music is rather vulgar if you actually listen, but then again, most of rap is. fortunately, there's not much ganster rap competition except dr. dre, but i have feeling nelly could win as one of the biggest, and smoothest rap acts of the year.

02/01/01(7pm)-i said i'd do it and after carrying 13k of books around the city and up the hill, not much else to do tonight so it's time to literally pull out the calendar and see what went on back in the year 2000....

Y2K-The Ups and Downs

January- A new acoustic guitar and several college interviews for northwestern, washington, and brandeis. of those three, i only ended up accepted at two. deadline for the mcgill app. rane played the equator on the 8th...went with margaret to that one i think. midterms came for senior year. not bad, not good, physics a doozy as always. worked with a bunch of people at the chinese culture club's new years celebration at TE. good show, fairly simple, food afterwards, and some signed money by dr. henry lee. way to start off the 00s.

February-Short and relatively boring month, says the calendar. went to the snowball with erin as the date that wasnt a date since girls have a thing about the word "date." apparently its a bad word or something so nothing's ever a "date" good night although i was being harassed by carrie all night. rane at the equator the next night and the start of vacation

March-Ah yes, in like a lion, out like a lamb (or something like that), which looks kinda like a picture from dali. duclos took us to the wadsworth to see the dali exhibit. excellent paintings from one of my favorite artists. march 4th was another rane show at uhart with this guy, ty braxton, which i went to with erin. couldnt stay the whole show, but always fun, even if we couldnt figure out where exactly on campus the hawks nest was. french field trip at uconn to see the play "lovers and executioners," a take off of a play by moliere i believe...really funny, and the trip was a trip with me hacking and wallis kneeing...the next week was bye bye birdie, our last theatrical production at swhs. quite the show. i worked the promix with julie, built sets, the whole shebang. show went really well even though neil rinaldi was breathing down our necks worse than graner. other than a few mistakes, we had mainly near perfect performances. after writing a 22 page journal of everything that was fucked up in my life, somehow the relationship with carrie formed and we were going out by the time the musical was over. mcgill started mailing decisions out and within a few days, i knew for sure where i would be going to school in september. yet another equator show on the 24th...i went with carrie and somehow "gemini" became our song, although i later decided to forget about that for my own sake and for the enjoyment of the music's sake. spring convention at usy ended the month and brought us into

April-First weekend of april was usy spring convention down in north haven. really touching last convention, got to see all the guys that were at fall, etc...always felt just a little more jewish after going to convention. un/fortunately i had to miss national history day because of it, but oh well. wasnt ready anyways. lovely talent show at the HS the weekend after that with it ending with riaan lighting things on fire. dont think i'll forget riaan. french day at uconn brought quiz bowl and somehow we ended up being second place out of 5 but we got this nice and big trophy. still didnt help my french though...visited mcgill in april and submitted my acceptance and deposit. it was also about that weekend that unbeknownst to me, there was something rotten in the state of denmark (south windsor also). went to modern rock the earth day at bushnell park and met up with margarets friend andrea. also saw scott zoback and jannine from camp. show was good, but very muddy. only made it to see splender, and goldfinger and by that point, people were drunk and throwing mud and vertical horizon never came on. got the cable modem the same day. for that matter, napster started getting used a lot more and my mp3 collection tripled in the following month. easter sunday didnt matter to us, so my family and i saw "1776" at the bushnell. very good play, the first i saw since i started working tech crew. and even though you knew the outcome, it was very moving and tense, especially at the end... fight club came out on dvd so of course i had it. april 28th was the junior prom and started the downward spiral that lasted several months even til after school was out. everyone went but me and julian so we both watched fight club in the theater and stayed around for the jaycees magic show that night. extremely boring, but well paid. then julian and i went to yet another rane show at the equator, which was julian's first rane experience. he loved it and since has almost all the rane music out there...we spend the whole night bitching about the prom and what was wrong with it, my reservations on the dating situation, etc... the next night was my cousin adam's bar mitzvah in framingham so we went to that and the mcgill open house at newton, mass. still worried about prom weekend, but not much for me to do about it...a few days later in

May-arguments about what went on at the prom and the truth about what happened while i was at montreal came out. within days, carrie had dumped me for andrew, leaving bitterness and resentment for months, and a scar on all relationships. spring concerts started and more working with skip, rinaldi's yesman roadie. a nice long show for the autism society doing sound myself for 9 1/2 hrs. doug flutie was supposed to come but he ended up with "family committments" and couldnt make it. literally made me insane and i realized that the root of my problems is that i can't stand being alone for that length of time. my own thoughts start to annoy me more and more and my problems start to dwell more and more cause theres nothing else to take my mind off them. the earlier events in the week did not help me. mom's 48th birthday and senior outing at holiday hill. outing was fun, even with all the tension but coming up was

June-our last month at SWHS. already i couldnt wait to get out since i saw relationships falling apart, yet at the same time, the last week of school or so made me want to be closer once again...a long string of events in the last two weeks of school. a graduation rehearsal, senior breakfast, and thesis presentation on the same day. my thesis was on human existence, asking if its real and what its made of...based a lot on the matrix and ontological principles. finals again, broken up only by the weekend and senior reception at la renaissance. all the grudges and everyting between all us seniors was broken down for a night and we danced and crap like that...that was also the night rane had their cd release party at the webster to premiere Camelopardalis. more fun at the usy final event at six flags, but none of my friends went and i ended up tagging along with some girls and it was kinda rainy and i'm not much of a rides person...camelopardalis hit stores on the last day of school but i couldnt find it anywhere so it took a day or two to find a store that had it. graduation was the next day and it was a cool but dull ceremony with brower talking about rememberance and andrew talking about friends. following was operation graduation, an allnighter at the school which went pretty well and had us doing a lot of activities although being bored in the early morning. that was before we were used to a 4am sleep schedule. the next week started my job at the manchester water department, primarily weedwacking, string trimming and brush trimming with steve and bob and mike and ben, under the direction of peter connorton. hey, we got a truck out of it. the last weekend of june was radio104 fest, which was my first concert in a while and really good. creed was headlining and was outstanding, giving a 90 min performance at the end of the night. also there was shades apart, dynamite hack, rane, angry salad, 3 doors down, eve 6, and multiple other bands.

July-the official start of summer. got my AP scores back and did crappy, but i got uconn credit anyways...rane plays the equator and charter oak landing, but i tink i only go to the equator show. and of course the countdown to mcgill starts. the 30th was the 3eb concert at the oakdale and they played with vertical horizon and splender. crappy weather but great concert with the new guitarist, even if stephen jenkins is an egomaniac...

August-the end of the summer and a rane summer at that. MARS opens up at 9am and i register for my years worth of classes and julian and i see rane play at the hartford advocate's grand band slam in downtown hartford. around that time, i start to develop a relationship with melissa as a joke on jon, but backfires, we both like each other and itbecomes more real then we both thought it would. while my parents go away to las vegas, i take her out to hartford to mark twain days and we go see the fireworks, some music and big head tom and the monsters. who knew they were big? aside from elises 14th birthday was rane doing their annual outdoors show at nevers road park which melissa and i went to and after went to her youth group meeting. one more show at the equator with margaret on my last day of work before i dont get to see them for four months. good times. sunday the 20th is pepe's pizza in new haven, which turns out to be a bust as only 4 out of 22 invitees come with me and there's no clams for a white clam pizza. scott (and ben) and my 18th birthday is on the 21st so garrett's friend jen has something for us at garretts, so after talking to her online for a while, we finally meet (even though she only lives in windsor). that friday was the last night out at friendly's, then starbucks, and that was it, montreal here i came. the 26th was the ride up, an anxious stay in the hotel and the 27th was moving day for me. met my neighbors and then stayed in my room overnight while most people moved in the 28th. and the next day after that was orientation- a weeks worth of drinking games sponsored by molson. the week after that was

September-our first floor event at bowling and already i was getting my cough. learned alot about how the health care system works up here. had major cultural issues and drinking issues, but eventually got over it several weeks later. floor allnighter up the mountain was fun, although tiring, but that was soon to be the sleep schedule many of us would be on anyways...started to develop a relationship with a girl on my floor only it was all in my head and when a poem i gave her got ripped i got upset and cooled off with her. in doing so, i realized i wasnt her type and rejected myself for her...shot a lot of pool to pass spare time. decided to see what tech crew was like here and what was going on at the radio station. both were busts and thus may wait til next year. high holidays came at the end of september and i was by myself on them up here. first weekend in

October-i did my 5 year anniversary of my haftorah at a local conservadox synagogue. went just as smoothly, if not smoother, than it did in front of this bigger and foreign audience. some logic assignments, political theory essays, midterms, and nights out at the bars and the end of the month came with a great concert at the molson centre with eminem, papa roach, and limp bizkit. nice 5 hr concert with decent seats, even if i didnt get to sit with jon and jared...started to develop a relationship with another girl on my floor, who was on my floor, but after doing the anonymous rose thing in early november and then blowing it, she said she wanted to be friends because it would be too weird being on the same floor...blah blah blah blah blah. twas about this time that melissa and i also started to slip apart

November- more polisci stuff including presentations and another logic assignment. my dad's 48th birthday and pierre trudeau's funeral early in the month. canadian elections were called and florida had a chad problem, eventually leading to the election of a dumbass yuker. good thing i came to canada. no one says hoser, no one says take off, but they say aboot and eh. leave it to strange brew...end up having to read john stuart mill's "on liberty," one of the most influential pieces in my thinking now...start to like another girl from a few floors down even though i dont know much about her. she says she only wants to get to know me as a friend (what else is new), except we do go on a hockey date in

December-just dont call it a date because girls get upset over that. classes ended and hell of exams started. the 7th brought 2 exams, 1 on the 14th, one on the 18th and one on the 19th. i went home the 19th, suprising everyone who though i was coming home the 21st. exams were very stressing, hellish, particularly logic, but part of it was me getting behind in work. i hope to change that a bit this semester. break was short although lengthened by a storm which sent me back new years day instead. not much went on other than a visit to SWHS, brunch with the guys, a nice phat long rane concert, a few parties, etc. most of the week was boring though since all my stuff was in montreal, including skis and guitars and cash (although i was missing that in montreal also). rounding out the year was a nice new years party, even though several people got pissed at our actions which was a little over doing it. all in all with the exception of that, the end of 2000 was pretty good, bringing its ups and downs to an end and paving the way for it to happen again in 2001...

02/01/01(noon)-well, i might as well start by saying that its now the 2001, the new millenium. woo. woopeedoo. everyone makes such a big deal out of it like its the end all of mankind (although those doomsday cults are back at it again...) i dont know what's so nuts about a calendar that was based entirely on a guy that lived 2001 years ago and as far as i remember, didnt do anything for me. and if a dead person did something for me while he was dead, i think i'd be scared. now seriously, why cant we go by the hebrew calendar and write the year as 5761? we'd sure avoid all of that millennial crap.

i'm back here in montreal now after an extended 13 day break. feels good to be back...missed my guitar, my poutine, my stereo...so basically my flight ended up getting changed on friday night to last night because of this "huge storm," which was no big deal cause we get that up here anyways. hell, we got about another foot of snow by the time i came back last night. so anyways, that left plans for new years in montreal aborted and lazily trying to figure out what to do with my time. finally i ended up at scotts, where he and jon were building an igloo. then ryan macquarrie came over and we went to dinner at pizza hut before chilling at jons house. so then we went to nicole's house for an hour or so (which is about all i think i was going to spend there), but jon said something to them about the 5 of us clubbing. personally, i'd like to think we learned our lessons from urkel and those adorable tanner girls. apparently not. so we had a few drinks, some new years champagne, and we're buzzing a little, but not drunk out of our minds. i believe its called drinking responsibly. people do do that...so of course, thats when the clubbing thing falls apart, blah blah, becomes like an episode of family matters or full house. so that was the whole rest of the night was worrying what everyone else thinks, but in talking to mom and dad about it yesterday afternoon, they say that worrying about what everyone else thinks eats me up and affects how i deal with everyone else, particularly them. that i worry too much about what everyone else thinks of me drinking. drinking ages aside, i'm not an alcoholic, i drink socially, the end. its sad that i cant talk to my friends about things i do for fear of their disapproval because it involves alcohol or the like. why should you have to hide things from your friends? hell, i think there's more i end up hiding from my friends than from my own parents, which is kinda sad...and i think its sadder that we're halfway done with the school year and i've adjusted to me, my parents have adjusted, but not all my friends have. i just dont get it....

i'm reminded of john stuart mill's harm principle. "on liberty" was probably the most impacting piece of work on me since maybe fight club. (http://members.nbci.com/Smalrus/millpaternalism.html) basically, it's the basis of liberal ideology and talks about the rights of the individual and how the state shouldnt interfere in a person's liberties unless that person is in danger of harming someone else. not even if the person is in danger of harming their own lives through their actions should the state interfere (with a few exceptions like suicide, etc....) now i fail to see where drinking harms anyone, particularly if you're not a belligerent drunk. and as for harming myself, there's not much there either other than maybe my liver, but i dont drink excessively enough for that as a problem. so it bothers me that people are bothered by this. then again, i guess thats where the conservative/liberal line is drawn...

so last night i left the house at 430ish to get to my 545 flight out of bradley. slight delay on the luggage, got in around 730ish, walked up university st almost 2 miles with my suitcase and bags and got in around 9. basically i was exhausted after 2 hrs of sleep and the walk, so it was just lounging here, waiting and eating for poutine, playing my guitar, etc and hitting the sack. today i'm supposed to go to the bookstore, see if i cant get my textbooks to beat the rush, and then who knows what...prolly get some lunch on university st, go to the bank and chill back here before classes start tomorrow. my semester runs something like this: MWF-Gov't and Politics of the Developed World-930-1030, Int'l Politics:Economic Relations-1030-1130, Religions of E. Asia-130-230. T-TH Music History 830-1000, Macroeconomics 1130-100. So it should be a good semester, hopefully i wont let myself get too far behind like i did last semester. ah well...fresh slate...tonight i'm probably doing to do my full year in review. the uppers and downers of 2000. i'm not sure why though...all i've got to do is read the past reflections...

Past reflections: