Rest of orientation
So, on with the rest of orientation. I believe the next day, thursday, we hung out during the day, went to the presentations maybe. Had a FAC group meeting where we were supposed to discuss the Palace Theif, our summer reading, but we voted that down and did the, "my name is _____, I'm from ____, this is a story in my life:" just to talk. Don't remember what I said but Keith was there because his FAC didn't show up or something and he talked about being pulled over by a cop while driving his tractor down the road. I was eying Andrea the whole time, she was hot. I had a boner. Not really, I just wanted to say that for some reason . . .
Actually, brother Adrian came down because he was going down the east coast to visit various people, one of which was me. He told me about some surfing competition in NJ that he watched which was cool. I don't think he was there while we had the FAC group powow. Grrrr, no more assigning days because I don't know which day this happened. We walked around campus a litte and videotaped. We went to Office Max or some shit and got an ethernet cord which turned out to be faulty. I eventually got a good one and a refrigerator at the same place. The lack of internet capability on my computer for the first few days was the cause for great anxiety on my part.
Moving on. That evening we went to Cosmic Cantina for the first time with with a couple other FAC groups. I met Katherine at this time I think. I recognized her beauty but was not interested in her. On the walk to Cosmic I talked with another one of the FACs who was hot and wearing a skirt which was doubly hot. I was interested. At Cosmic (a seemingly hole in the wall type mexican restaurant with good food and decent prices which we later found out, to our dismay, was a chain) we ate. Naturally. I spoke with Andrea a little and made fun of her chic sunglasses because I was getting the bitch vibe from her just in general and I wanted to kind of poke fun and break the ice at the same time. Mixed results.
-One of the following two nights I was walking down the hall and ran into this kid who I believed to be indian by appearance and some of his friends. He was talking to someone and said he was looking for a kid named Tyler Brown. I was like, "I'm Tyler Brown." Funny situation. Turns out this Was Mo, a kid I'd spoke with on AIM a couple times over the summer. So I went with these kids over to their dorm, Alspaugh. I got to know a few of them when we went down to this kid T.J.'s room to drink. There was Nick, Mo's roommate Yezen, Sarah, Emily, Star and a couple others I don't remember. There was this other kid Dan who lived in my hall who was real quiet who had followed me around a little bit the past day or two I think because we'd met that first night or something. Anyway, we were drinking and having a good time when a couple of the girls, who were drunk, left to go to the bathroom and made so much noise in the hall on the way back that a couple of the RAs (neither of which belonged to that hall, one of which was from another dorm. WTF?) came in and busted us. I was buzzed but they told us probably nothing would happen. We went outside and discussed it and concluded that since they hadn't seen any of us drinking that they couldn't bust us and that's what we'd tell the RC or whatever when we met with him.
Hung around outside on Alspaugh's bench while a couple of them smoked. There was some festival/performance/funtime activities happening on the quad that a lot of kids were at but we stayed on the outskirts. Got to know Emily a little. Blonde chick who was decent looking and pretty sexy. At some point of leaving Alspaugh two girls who were cute stumbled in or out, don't remember. Tatiana and Ashley. They told me that I was hot and to stop by sometime or something like that. I enjoyed that.
Actually, Ashley went to Phillips Exeter and Tatiana lives in Boston-area and was really hot.
Went back to my room at some point and continued to try and encourage Adrian to come party with me but he refused. Something about partying with kids 8 years his junior and me telling him he could hook up with them didn't fly with him.
Went back to the quad and did the inflatable stuff a bit. Got to know Emily and Star some more. Danced some. Later on we went to George's Garage, a restaurant-by-day, club-by-night type place. It wasn't that great. A few of us didn't have fakes so, I think, Emily got us some drinks and we chilled a bit and that was it. I got back and Adrian was sleeping in my bed. I made him jet. He was like, "I wanna see where things go with that girl (Emily)." I was like, whatever.
-Another one of the first few nights I was on IM and this girl who I'd talked to on AIM over the summer IMd me. I'd IMd her a few times and talked to her 'cause she had her picture up and she was smokin' and was on the soccer team. She was in my dorm and told me to come over and visit. I was stoked, packed a condom, def. thought I was gettin' some ace.
So I chilled in there with her for a few minutes and talked. She was definitely as hot in person. As we talked I guess the fact that I'm a gigantic dork shone through and it didn't mesh with her hot athlete personality. I tried to show that I was cool by showing her my RA's ridiculous website and making fun of him but I think that just made look like more of a goob. Soon a couple of her friends on the guy's soccer team came over drunk or high and started eating shit and chilled for a while and it quickly got very uncomfortable for me. I jetted after a while assless.
-I think the second night, Keith and I went to dinner together and sat down with some chic we knew or some chic(s) sat with us. Actually, I think we already knew Tracy and that's who it was. Anyways, we sat with her and a couple of her friends, Barbara (who introduced herself as Barbie. Big, tall girl, pretty hot face) and Karen. I think there were a couple others at the table that I don't remember. Pretty much this is where we first got to know Tracy who was a pretty good friend of mine for the first quarter of the year and a good friend of Keith's the whole year. We hung out after that and there was another time that a few of us were eating BBQ on the quad or something and sitting on the Alspaugh bench when after a while it was just Tracy and I. We chatted a little and it was cool. It was always a little wierd with her because we're both shy so talking got awkward at points, but we're both pretty dry and got along pretty well.
She liked me for a while there and I thought about hooking up with her briefly but never did. I was never really attracted to her.
-Another time I was down in the commons room during the day. I'm not sure exactly what the scenario was, but I think Jay was down there with a couple people including Pauline who was in his FOCUS group.
They're FOCUS group ended up being a big part of my social life this year ironically. I'll get to that later.
So we were hanging there and I sat with Pauline on one of the couches and we talked for a while. We talked about how Stanford sucks because they didn't accept her but San Fran's cool and that's where she got the name tag on her key chain and how she's a gigantic Dexter and she's got soffee shorts that say Dexter on the ass and that she would wear them for me.
She was the first really good friend I had at Duke. Keith and I were close because we were roommates and had a lot in common and I became close with Jay pretty quickly too, but I was definitely most comfortable with Pauline right away. We have pretty much the same personality, always really happy and smiling and laughing and making sarcastic jokes and making fun of things. I clicked right away with her because of this which I rarely do with anyone and that was special for me. I was very comfortable with her, I felt like I could talk to her about anything and we could always find something to talk about and joke about. We even joked a lot about sexual stuff which was new for me with girls and was fun. We both laughed more than anyone else and showed a lot of gum. The only way that we are different in the good humor sense is that she is always happy and nice and friendly and outgoing whereas I am always happy and nice but because I'm so introverted and shy, I am not very friendly and just stay to myself around most other people. I was outgoing and completely comfortable when I was with her which I think made it easier for me to make friends with the other people I became close with early on and I owe a lot of thanks to her for that.
She's cute and she's pretty sexy and she liked me for a while in the beginning. I actually was a little worried at first because she laughed all the time and I thought that she was just doing that because she liked me and girls will do that, but eventually I just decided that she was like me and laughed at everything. After that I thought she was like that because she was very confident and just very comfortable being happy about everything but I've come to realize that we are both like that as a way of dealing with our insecurities (I'll discuss hers later). I'm compelled to think that's a bad trait because it's a result of something I don't like (my self-consciousness and shyness), but I can't do it. I know that I'm genuinely happy most of the time and when I laugh all the time it's not uncomfortable, I truly find things funny no matter what the reason and I feel good about it and I think the same goes for her. So even if that attitude has a negative root, I believe that it's a very positive manifestation and I'm glad the both of us have it.
I was physically attracted to her early on and at various times during the year, but there was something about her that discouraged me from really being attracted to her and so even though I thought about hooking up with her a little and I'm sure she wanted to, we never did. A big part of that was that I came to realize that she was much more important to me as a friend and, besides, at the time I was not interested in dating anyone and I knew that I could not just hook up with her. So we just ended up being really good friends. It was actually wierd at times because she was really good friends with Jay too and there were a few occassions when I worried that she was better friends with him than with me. It was just another petty little insecurity that I developed and it didn't matter whether she was or not. We just had different relationships with her, not one better than the other. I would just hear people say that they thought they were dating they were so close and I was like, "Why don't they think that about me and her?" even though I didn't want that. I was just jealous of them, I was sort of defensive about her when it came to that because she meant a lot to me. I'll get into that later.
I'm talking to her right now and she reminded me that during orientation we discovered that we both liked Guster. Guster is for lovers. Absolutely no connection between those two sentences, I just say that when I think of Guster.
-One of the shows we went to was about being safe with sex and shit. It was funny at first, they handed out condoms, but it got boring. They did skits about drinking about rape and drugs and "suspicious characters" and stuff. Pretty tame.
-Went to an a capella show on west. We got there late so we had to sit about as far back and high up in the balcony as possible. We sat down and then moved around a little and I was sitting next to Pauline I believe and Tracy was sitting on the next row down and a little bit away. Jay didn't come to this. I think the seating was a little awkward to begin with regarding Pauline and Tracy because I think they both were into me at the time.
I have this convoluted notion that they became friends because we all hung out because they both liked me and that may have some validity but that's probably just me being vain.
So, most of the groups were mediocre. We kept making fun of them and I was complaining that none of them could really sing with any power or bravado. I refused to clap for most of them which was a minor source of humor and when I did clap I clapped very loudly, which they made fun of me for. It's a characteristic I'm proud of. I was clapping louder than they were singing.
There were a couple good groups, the best of which was Speak of the Devil who not only sang well but did skits too. Very good and funny. When it was over we all were about to walk out the door when two kids came on stage claiming to be an a capella group named Billy's Goatee. Pauline and I stayed to watch them while everyone else left and they sang Vanessa Carlton's 1000 miles really funny with all sorts of movements and stuff. High comedy I assure you.
I briefly considered trying out for one of the male a capella groups but decided I wasn't ready and would try it next year. This is something I'm still serious about.
-Saw Maya Angelou speak in the Chapel, I believe the time before we had to sign the honor pledge. I fell asleep through parts of it and besides that Pauline and I did a lot of laughing and making fun of things. Rather pedestrian event although Maya was a pretty good speaker. Even though I was falling asleep she was quite entertaining.
-The first legit party we went to I think was Theta Chi off east. They were suspended or something so they could only have off-campus parties first semester and they had a lot of them. They were kind of dorks and that first party saw minimum female presence. Lots of people, an abundance of cock, not too cool. This turned out to be a common theme of Theta Chi parties.
As I remember, Keith, Pauline and I got beer and went to sit on the couch on the front porch and talked and shite. I think we had a discussion about Pauline's red puma sneakers; that sticks in my mind for some reason. I don't think much happened that night.
-OK, the final story from orientation time even though it didn't happen during orientation. I just wanna put it down. So I was supposed to do work-study, and in the first few days of school, maybe the first tuesday, there was a work-study emporium or something to check out all the opportunities, but I forgot to go. So a couple days later, I'm riding back from West on the bus, and there's this super-cute, gorgeous, adorable, uber-sexy girl sitting across the way in short spandex and a leotard-type top with a hair band and her school bag with her friend. I practically sprung right there she was looking so hot. So I sat there and didn't say anything to her like the chicken shit I am although I really wanted to, until we finally reached East and she turns to me and says, "You're not a freshman, are you?" And I'm like, booyeah! She thinks I look like an older guy! She digs me! So I told her I was a freshman (I couldn't lie in that situation obviously) and start chatting with her. Her name was Lizzy, a petitte girl from the Texas-Mexico boarder with a great accent. So fine. Turns out she'd gone to the work-study thing and she invited me back to her room(!) to check out the papers she picked up.
We got there and I discovered her roommate was Star which was interesting. She showed me the papers and we chatted some more before I left. Really cool. She was so nice and really cool and it seemed like she digged me to some degree.
It's actually really wierd how I left it though. On the one hand I thought she was so gorgeous and sexy and cute, (I love petitte girls) but on the other hand I wasn't immediately infatuated with her like I figure I would've. Afterwards I was like, "that was awesome" and thought about her and how hot and cool she was, but not much. I don't know, something about how she looked or was dressed seemed too cute or almost childish maybe? I'm not sure, it was just strange. There is a lot more about this girl later on.
Actually, brother Adrian came down because he was going down the east coast to visit various people, one of which was me. He told me about some surfing competition in NJ that he watched which was cool. I don't think he was there while we had the FAC group powow. Grrrr, no more assigning days because I don't know which day this happened. We walked around campus a litte and videotaped. We went to Office Max or some shit and got an ethernet cord which turned out to be faulty. I eventually got a good one and a refrigerator at the same place. The lack of internet capability on my computer for the first few days was the cause for great anxiety on my part.
Moving on. That evening we went to Cosmic Cantina for the first time with with a couple other FAC groups. I met Katherine at this time I think. I recognized her beauty but was not interested in her. On the walk to Cosmic I talked with another one of the FACs who was hot and wearing a skirt which was doubly hot. I was interested. At Cosmic (a seemingly hole in the wall type mexican restaurant with good food and decent prices which we later found out, to our dismay, was a chain) we ate. Naturally. I spoke with Andrea a little and made fun of her chic sunglasses because I was getting the bitch vibe from her just in general and I wanted to kind of poke fun and break the ice at the same time. Mixed results.
-One of the following two nights I was walking down the hall and ran into this kid who I believed to be indian by appearance and some of his friends. He was talking to someone and said he was looking for a kid named Tyler Brown. I was like, "I'm Tyler Brown." Funny situation. Turns out this Was Mo, a kid I'd spoke with on AIM a couple times over the summer. So I went with these kids over to their dorm, Alspaugh. I got to know a few of them when we went down to this kid T.J.'s room to drink. There was Nick, Mo's roommate Yezen, Sarah, Emily, Star and a couple others I don't remember. There was this other kid Dan who lived in my hall who was real quiet who had followed me around a little bit the past day or two I think because we'd met that first night or something. Anyway, we were drinking and having a good time when a couple of the girls, who were drunk, left to go to the bathroom and made so much noise in the hall on the way back that a couple of the RAs (neither of which belonged to that hall, one of which was from another dorm. WTF?) came in and busted us. I was buzzed but they told us probably nothing would happen. We went outside and discussed it and concluded that since they hadn't seen any of us drinking that they couldn't bust us and that's what we'd tell the RC or whatever when we met with him.
Hung around outside on Alspaugh's bench while a couple of them smoked. There was some festival/performance/funtime activities happening on the quad that a lot of kids were at but we stayed on the outskirts. Got to know Emily a little. Blonde chick who was decent looking and pretty sexy. At some point of leaving Alspaugh two girls who were cute stumbled in or out, don't remember. Tatiana and Ashley. They told me that I was hot and to stop by sometime or something like that. I enjoyed that.
Actually, Ashley went to Phillips Exeter and Tatiana lives in Boston-area and was really hot.
Went back to my room at some point and continued to try and encourage Adrian to come party with me but he refused. Something about partying with kids 8 years his junior and me telling him he could hook up with them didn't fly with him.
Went back to the quad and did the inflatable stuff a bit. Got to know Emily and Star some more. Danced some. Later on we went to George's Garage, a restaurant-by-day, club-by-night type place. It wasn't that great. A few of us didn't have fakes so, I think, Emily got us some drinks and we chilled a bit and that was it. I got back and Adrian was sleeping in my bed. I made him jet. He was like, "I wanna see where things go with that girl (Emily)." I was like, whatever.
-Another one of the first few nights I was on IM and this girl who I'd talked to on AIM over the summer IMd me. I'd IMd her a few times and talked to her 'cause she had her picture up and she was smokin' and was on the soccer team. She was in my dorm and told me to come over and visit. I was stoked, packed a condom, def. thought I was gettin' some ace.
So I chilled in there with her for a few minutes and talked. She was definitely as hot in person. As we talked I guess the fact that I'm a gigantic dork shone through and it didn't mesh with her hot athlete personality. I tried to show that I was cool by showing her my RA's ridiculous website and making fun of him but I think that just made look like more of a goob. Soon a couple of her friends on the guy's soccer team came over drunk or high and started eating shit and chilled for a while and it quickly got very uncomfortable for me. I jetted after a while assless.
-I think the second night, Keith and I went to dinner together and sat down with some chic we knew or some chic(s) sat with us. Actually, I think we already knew Tracy and that's who it was. Anyways, we sat with her and a couple of her friends, Barbara (who introduced herself as Barbie. Big, tall girl, pretty hot face) and Karen. I think there were a couple others at the table that I don't remember. Pretty much this is where we first got to know Tracy who was a pretty good friend of mine for the first quarter of the year and a good friend of Keith's the whole year. We hung out after that and there was another time that a few of us were eating BBQ on the quad or something and sitting on the Alspaugh bench when after a while it was just Tracy and I. We chatted a little and it was cool. It was always a little wierd with her because we're both shy so talking got awkward at points, but we're both pretty dry and got along pretty well.
She liked me for a while there and I thought about hooking up with her briefly but never did. I was never really attracted to her.
-Another time I was down in the commons room during the day. I'm not sure exactly what the scenario was, but I think Jay was down there with a couple people including Pauline who was in his FOCUS group.
They're FOCUS group ended up being a big part of my social life this year ironically. I'll get to that later.
So we were hanging there and I sat with Pauline on one of the couches and we talked for a while. We talked about how Stanford sucks because they didn't accept her but San Fran's cool and that's where she got the name tag on her key chain and how she's a gigantic Dexter and she's got soffee shorts that say Dexter on the ass and that she would wear them for me.
She was the first really good friend I had at Duke. Keith and I were close because we were roommates and had a lot in common and I became close with Jay pretty quickly too, but I was definitely most comfortable with Pauline right away. We have pretty much the same personality, always really happy and smiling and laughing and making sarcastic jokes and making fun of things. I clicked right away with her because of this which I rarely do with anyone and that was special for me. I was very comfortable with her, I felt like I could talk to her about anything and we could always find something to talk about and joke about. We even joked a lot about sexual stuff which was new for me with girls and was fun. We both laughed more than anyone else and showed a lot of gum. The only way that we are different in the good humor sense is that she is always happy and nice and friendly and outgoing whereas I am always happy and nice but because I'm so introverted and shy, I am not very friendly and just stay to myself around most other people. I was outgoing and completely comfortable when I was with her which I think made it easier for me to make friends with the other people I became close with early on and I owe a lot of thanks to her for that.
She's cute and she's pretty sexy and she liked me for a while in the beginning. I actually was a little worried at first because she laughed all the time and I thought that she was just doing that because she liked me and girls will do that, but eventually I just decided that she was like me and laughed at everything. After that I thought she was like that because she was very confident and just very comfortable being happy about everything but I've come to realize that we are both like that as a way of dealing with our insecurities (I'll discuss hers later). I'm compelled to think that's a bad trait because it's a result of something I don't like (my self-consciousness and shyness), but I can't do it. I know that I'm genuinely happy most of the time and when I laugh all the time it's not uncomfortable, I truly find things funny no matter what the reason and I feel good about it and I think the same goes for her. So even if that attitude has a negative root, I believe that it's a very positive manifestation and I'm glad the both of us have it.
I was physically attracted to her early on and at various times during the year, but there was something about her that discouraged me from really being attracted to her and so even though I thought about hooking up with her a little and I'm sure she wanted to, we never did. A big part of that was that I came to realize that she was much more important to me as a friend and, besides, at the time I was not interested in dating anyone and I knew that I could not just hook up with her. So we just ended up being really good friends. It was actually wierd at times because she was really good friends with Jay too and there were a few occassions when I worried that she was better friends with him than with me. It was just another petty little insecurity that I developed and it didn't matter whether she was or not. We just had different relationships with her, not one better than the other. I would just hear people say that they thought they were dating they were so close and I was like, "Why don't they think that about me and her?" even though I didn't want that. I was just jealous of them, I was sort of defensive about her when it came to that because she meant a lot to me. I'll get into that later.
I'm talking to her right now and she reminded me that during orientation we discovered that we both liked Guster. Guster is for lovers. Absolutely no connection between those two sentences, I just say that when I think of Guster.
-One of the shows we went to was about being safe with sex and shit. It was funny at first, they handed out condoms, but it got boring. They did skits about drinking about rape and drugs and "suspicious characters" and stuff. Pretty tame.
-Went to an a capella show on west. We got there late so we had to sit about as far back and high up in the balcony as possible. We sat down and then moved around a little and I was sitting next to Pauline I believe and Tracy was sitting on the next row down and a little bit away. Jay didn't come to this. I think the seating was a little awkward to begin with regarding Pauline and Tracy because I think they both were into me at the time.
I have this convoluted notion that they became friends because we all hung out because they both liked me and that may have some validity but that's probably just me being vain.
So, most of the groups were mediocre. We kept making fun of them and I was complaining that none of them could really sing with any power or bravado. I refused to clap for most of them which was a minor source of humor and when I did clap I clapped very loudly, which they made fun of me for. It's a characteristic I'm proud of. I was clapping louder than they were singing.
There were a couple good groups, the best of which was Speak of the Devil who not only sang well but did skits too. Very good and funny. When it was over we all were about to walk out the door when two kids came on stage claiming to be an a capella group named Billy's Goatee. Pauline and I stayed to watch them while everyone else left and they sang Vanessa Carlton's 1000 miles really funny with all sorts of movements and stuff. High comedy I assure you.
I briefly considered trying out for one of the male a capella groups but decided I wasn't ready and would try it next year. This is something I'm still serious about.
-Saw Maya Angelou speak in the Chapel, I believe the time before we had to sign the honor pledge. I fell asleep through parts of it and besides that Pauline and I did a lot of laughing and making fun of things. Rather pedestrian event although Maya was a pretty good speaker. Even though I was falling asleep she was quite entertaining.
-The first legit party we went to I think was Theta Chi off east. They were suspended or something so they could only have off-campus parties first semester and they had a lot of them. They were kind of dorks and that first party saw minimum female presence. Lots of people, an abundance of cock, not too cool. This turned out to be a common theme of Theta Chi parties.
As I remember, Keith, Pauline and I got beer and went to sit on the couch on the front porch and talked and shite. I think we had a discussion about Pauline's red puma sneakers; that sticks in my mind for some reason. I don't think much happened that night.
-OK, the final story from orientation time even though it didn't happen during orientation. I just wanna put it down. So I was supposed to do work-study, and in the first few days of school, maybe the first tuesday, there was a work-study emporium or something to check out all the opportunities, but I forgot to go. So a couple days later, I'm riding back from West on the bus, and there's this super-cute, gorgeous, adorable, uber-sexy girl sitting across the way in short spandex and a leotard-type top with a hair band and her school bag with her friend. I practically sprung right there she was looking so hot. So I sat there and didn't say anything to her like the chicken shit I am although I really wanted to, until we finally reached East and she turns to me and says, "You're not a freshman, are you?" And I'm like, booyeah! She thinks I look like an older guy! She digs me! So I told her I was a freshman (I couldn't lie in that situation obviously) and start chatting with her. Her name was Lizzy, a petitte girl from the Texas-Mexico boarder with a great accent. So fine. Turns out she'd gone to the work-study thing and she invited me back to her room(!) to check out the papers she picked up.
We got there and I discovered her roommate was Star which was interesting. She showed me the papers and we chatted some more before I left. Really cool. She was so nice and really cool and it seemed like she digged me to some degree.
It's actually really wierd how I left it though. On the one hand I thought she was so gorgeous and sexy and cute, (I love petitte girls) but on the other hand I wasn't immediately infatuated with her like I figure I would've. Afterwards I was like, "that was awesome" and thought about her and how hot and cool she was, but not much. I don't know, something about how she looked or was dressed seemed too cute or almost childish maybe? I'm not sure, it was just strange. There is a lot more about this girl later on.