Birthday Party

Last night I celebrated my birthday with a couple of friends by having  a social gathering at my house. It was a good time for all, and I am now ready to officially exit my teenage years. The night started slowly with a few friends coming over for dinner. I made fried rice – something I learned from my Dad, who know how to prepare three dishes, the other two being fried bologna and Pizza Hut. Marco arrived with some decorations and the news that someone was going to bring some music over later, which was awesome news as all we have is a laptop and its horrible speakers. We tied up some balloons, put the rest of the balloons in the empty swimming pool, and prepared the house for a few more friends.

There’s a few different people who read this, so in order to address what it is that you need to hear as a given reader, I would ask to to follow the instructions below.

If you are my parents, read this:

The party was great. Earlier in the week, I was joking with Marco about buying a piñata for my birthday. Next thing I know, there’s three piñatas at my party. I scored a giraffe, a Landon Donnovan, and a Spiderman. We strung up the piñata and I tried to hit with a stick, but they put a blindfold on me which made it really really hard but it was fun nonetheless. Candy fell out at the end, which tasted really good. Some friends from school came to my party, and we talked about academic things. School is going well, I study a lot. I need money.

If you are my fraternity brothers, read this:

Beerpong. Finally. I’ve been trying to make this happen since I arrived, but ping pong balls and long wooden tables are tough to come by in Mexico. I finally found the balls, bought some cups, but was one table short of teaching Mexicans America’s real past time. I spent all day looking around, even asked someone if I could buy their door. They said yes, but for $20. Out of my price range. I eventually discovered that the beds in the open room had a solid base, so we ended up with a beerpong bed. Jan, a german guy, and myself cleaned house. We were beerpong gods amongst little beerpong men. Knowshons amongst mortals. Nemos amogst Pfingys. The piñata was hard as hell to hit because I was 6 or 7 games deep when I tried to do it, don’t tell my parents. We had a DJ come and blare some music for us. It was no Fly-by-radio, but the density of people was about the same – packed to the walls – which made it a good time. I am now in the same shape I was in after both big brother nights. Please send the pledges, my house looks like festivus.

If you are the people who sponsor my program, read this:

The transmission of culture that took place at my birthday party was both enriching and educational. Here’s a picture of the sunset.

If you taught me spanish in high school: I’ve learned lots of vocabulary here. Today I picked up the words for glass shards (vidrios) and hangover (estar + crudo), and used the imperfect subjunctive to talk about the party last night.

If you are a member of Low End Honey: Monterrey is prime terriotory for launching our international tour. A live band last night would have been the frosting on the beercan.

If you are Chris Golden or my brother (or anyone who wants to come here for spring break): The party we throw if you visit for spring break will be just as fun, if not fun-er.

If you are Nico, my roomate who left the morning of the party to go to the beach for a week: The party wan’t that grerat, only the most fun birthday event of my life. Don’t worry about missing it. Someone else trashed house.

The night was definitely a success. The house we live in was notorious for its parties last year, and I had two ex-tennants and a few others who were around then compliment us by saying “the Casa Azul is back man” which is a pretty big compliment I think. At the end of the night, three piñatas and a few refreshments later, I was most definitely not ready to party like a Mexican and stay up until six in the morning, so I snuck off to bed around 3:30, then this happened. Happy birthday to me.

Expectations

As you all may or may not know, I’m headed to Monterrey, México for the semester. I’ll be studying at the Universidad de Monterrey, living in an apartment (which I haven’t leased yet) with roommates ( that I haven’t met yet) and taking classes ( that I haven’t been able to sign up for yet). I’ve been doing paperwork and research about programs since August, so I’m pretty excited to finally be leaving. It hit me hard that I won’t be in Athens next semester this past week when I had to say bye to people like Burgis, Jones, Lyndsay, Becky, and Choo Choo’s, but it just recently hit me that what goes along with not being in Athens is actually being in Monterrey. Here are some expectations that I have:

1. Food – I’ve been wrestling with the concept of “don’t drink the water” as it pretains to Mexico. I don’t think I will be able to avoid everything that has been touched by water for five months, so I have made the executive decision to go all out when I arrive and let montezuma ruin my life for a little bit. I predict that this will suck. Once I get past that little hiccup though, i’m sure the food is going to be exactly like the menú at taco bell. Ok I’m kidding. The mexican food is going to be awesome, but I am extremely worried about the availability of cheap chinese food. I’ll keep you updated on this.

2. Class – My classes will be in spanish, so I see myself following along adequately with the lectures and discussions, hearing something slightly wrong, raising my hand to comment about it, then telling the professor that his or her cow is going to be sick when I meant to say that water bottles require more water to produce than is actually in them, only to be answered by him or her saying, “that’s nice, but we’re talking about the mexican war for independence.” I really do foresee that I will have things that I want to say that I will not share because I won’t be able to translate the thought or just straight don’t want to embarrass myself.

3. Social Life – I fancy myself a pretty outgoing, funny person…In english. Not only will I have to translate my life into spanish, but I will also have to remove any pop culture/obscure movie references, which (experiment and try this at home while talking to someone) is like, hard. I see this resulting in many awkward silences and “eh…ehm…no entiendo”s. I’m banking on the fact that the population thinks I’m cool because I’m taller than 5’10”.

4. Assimilation – being taller than 5’10”, the national maximum height for mexican citizens, I don’t know how well I will blend in. This, however, has its advantages, as I will be able to view concerts with ease, get gatos out of trees, and ride all of the rides at Six Flags, mexico. I plan to tan a bit, and do my best to grow a mustache, which will result in my looking like David Mullen the week before spring break, but with a bad mustache.

5. Escapes Back to Things American – Depending on how I deal with the shock of lifestyle change, I could see myself doing a number of things to stay in touch with my inner Amurrrica. My first thought would be to watch the Daytona 500 in a public place on ESPN360, screaming “Go four car” wildly while wearing jorts and my favorite cutoff (already packed them). Other things will include McDonalds, Budwieser, and perhaps a trip to the great state of Texas, where the only thing bigger than its’ land area is its’ ego. Sorry Texans.

I fly (for essentially, the first time) out on the 6th, and will be in Mexico until May 31st. I’ll miss everyone (sans Daniel Lewis), and it’d make my day to see that anyone reads this. Happy New Year, Go Dawgs, Love and Respect, Salutations, Long Live America, -Randall