Fresh From Key Largo!

I have made my triumphant return to my homeland (North Carolina) and I come back a certified scuba diver! Yay! The trip was great. So worth it. And flying over driving? Best decision ever (I know, I know, I've said that before. But I mean it!). Now I'm ready to leave for my cruise! We fly to San Juan tomorrow morning and the boat leaves Sunday. I can't wait, I'm so excited! The only problem is packing. I'm already busting the seams on my suitcase. I still need room for the things I plan to acquire on the trip! Grr! Damn airlines and their stupid paying for checked luggage ridiculousness. Oh, well. I'll keep working on it, I guess.

In other news, I graduated from college. Yes, it finally happened and, no, I'm still not sure about it. The graduation was great. Our commencement speaker, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was simultaneously insane and awesome. There were lots of mentions of the basketball championship (speaking of, this is completely unrelated, but totally worth checking out). I'm going to miss it. I just can't fathom my life without school. And lately it's really been starting to hit me that I will not be going to Chapel Hill in the fall. I guess I will technically still be a student since I'm enrolled in a graduate program, but still. It's not the same. We'll see how things go.

I Think I'm Finally Ready To Talk About It

So, it's been over a week since that awful Wednesday evening when Anoop was kicked off America Sucks American Idol. It took a week of bitterness but I think I'm finally OK with it. Still not overly happy because when I think about that damn judge's save, I still get a little rage-y. But I've accepted it and I'm ready to move on. I know, that's what really matters. Anyway, Anoop seems to be taking it extremely well. His interviews have all been gracious and charming. I especially loved this one. It helped kickstart my healing process. So good for him! I hope he does well. Alright, I think that's enough of my melodramatics for now.

I did go to the Clef concert last Saturday. It was really good. Probably the best one I've been to, and I've been to every single one since I was a sophomore. They released their new CD, Twist. It's pretty great. I highly recommend it. You can check out a bunch of their performances on YouTube.

Also, Monday was the last day of classes and I attended the last class of my undergraduate career! So sad. I have one more exam for the semester and then...GRADUATION! I still have mixed feelings. The whole thing has been very bittersweet. I didn't realize when I came to Chapel Hill just how much I would love the town and the university. Well, it's been a great four years.

Now it's time for my cruise!

Final Four Update

Well, I've had plenty of time to recover from my road trip to Detroit for the Final Four. I'm so glad my roommate and I went. It was well worth it. We'll never have an opportunity like that again. And to think we were going to come home after the semi-finals. I know! But the day we were going to leave, we decided we just couldn't. Best decision ever! I know I missed the Franklin Street mob, but being in Ford Field with the team in that moment was priceless. I can rush Franklin Street for any old Duke victory! Anyway, here are a couple of snapshots from the weekend. We even went wine tasting in Canada!

Detroit, Here I Come!

Best day ever! That's right, I will be in Detroit for the Final Four! Not only will I be in Detroit but I will in the Ford Field arena watching my beloved Tar Heels take on Villanova this Saturday! I know! And it's my birthday! My life will be complete at 22!

My roommate and I decided to sign up for the lottery for student tickets just in case, thinking we probably wouldn't get tickets. But we did! We didn't even think much about little things like how we would get there, where we would stay, etc. But it's looking like a road trip and we've booked a hotel.

I can hardly wait!

Update...Again

I know I said I'd post more fashion reviews over Spring Break. I had my wisdom teeth taken out Thursday and I meant to get a few in before that, but I just didn't get around to it. Bear with me and I'll get them up as soon as I can. Meaning some time next week, I hope.

In other news, the UNC/Duke game was AWESOME! Best basketball game of my undergraduate career. The senior basketball players gave speeches after the game and all was wonderful. Now, it's time for March Madness!

Also, Anoop is still kicking on American Idol! Yay!

Update

Well, it's that time of the semester again. Midterms. Ugh. So I'm taking a break from my preppy fashion blogging until they're over. But there is a silver lining. Spring Break! So, I'll be back at it soon.

P.S. Another silver lining from this week. I got tickets to the Duke/UNC game on Sunday! Finally, being a senior pays off!

Best Article EVAH!!!

I haven't had a lot of time lately but I love this article so I had to post it. Every year, the DTH runs this 1990 article by former columnist Ian Williams on every Tar Heel's favorite topic (basketball) and the million dollar question (Why do we hate Duke so much?). I find it rather insightful and it always makes me smile.

I recall a strange and hazy time about four and a half years ago, fretting in the sweltering heat of Hinton James 244, sitting on my bed while the rest of the residents scurried outside.

My suitemate from Brevard was parading his spittle collection, a particularly nauseating mass of his oral waste that he kept in three 2-liter bottles above the door. My roommate spoke in a dialect from Edenton that barely passed for anything on our side of the language tree, and the only things I had to wear in the 105-degree weather were corduroy pants from my goofball private high school. Tripping over the bricks, showing up for classes in rooms miles away from where the classes were taught and getting lost by the water tower, I might as well have had a huge placard wrapped around my neck that said "Oh so clueless" and a number to call in case anybody found me peeing in his yard.

But there was a time before that. I call it The Time When I Thought I Wanted to Go to Duke.

For some unexplainable reasons having to do with planetary alignment or a chemical imbalance, I was set on going to that university in Durham. My high school in Virginia brainwashed us all into thinking that if we didn't end up going to either Duke, UVa. or one of the Ivys we would surely end up stocking Pampers at Wal-Mart. So off I scuttled to those schools, all bushy-tailed and bated, hopin' to impress some institutes of higher learning. By the time I got to visiting Duke, however, the luster of college had begun to dull into a bleak haze.

My tour guide's name was Lorna - no lie - and she spoke in a loud, brash voice that seemed to shake the leaves from the cute little shrubberies. "And on your left is Duke Chapel, the centerpiece of our Gothic campus. Our university is considered by many to be the most beautiful campus in America."

"Umm, excuse me," I said, "Where do all the kids live?"

"The kids," she said, in a voice of utter disdain reserved only for parents whose child had been very, very naughty. "The Duke student body mostly lives in the buildings you are looking at right here, with the beautiful Gothic architecture."

"Well, how hard are the classes here? Would I be studying all the time?"

She fixed her cruel New Jersey gaze on my frightened 17-year-old soul. "Look, that's totally assuming you even get in here at all. I know tons of people that would have given their left arm to get in here. And not only that, but - Oh, hi, Thad!" Some senior named Thad wearing Vuarnets and baggy khaki shorts ambled up with an evil Gleem smile.

"Leadin' the kids around, eh Lorna?" he asked, and cackled like the frat Grinch.

"Yeah," she giggled, and the two whispered to each other while exchanging muffled laughs.

I was herded into the cafeteria and stuck in a line for pizza, while Lorna went off into the crowd with some of her friends. A scowling guy slapped a piece of rubber pepperoni pizza on my plate, and as I walked across the room to sit down, I tripped on one of those Gothic little cherub things on the floor and sent my pizza flying 20 feet onto the sweater of a girl named Annabeth, a junior English major from Bridgeport, Conn.

"Oh my God!" she squealed, and every face in the entire joint looked right at me. Thad the sunglasses man started to clap, and half of the cafeteria joined in my humiliation.

Suddenly, I was back in third grade, and all the boys and girls were pointing and laughing at the picture I'd drawn of my family. Suddenly, I was sitting alone at the side of the blacktop while everyone else got picked for the dodgeball team. Suddenly, I was lying in the Iowa snow, getting my ribs kicked by five guys who thought I'd stolen their football. I had no escape.

And that's when I decided to go to Carolina. I had never seen the place, had never heard of Chapel Hill and I picked Hinton James because it had a laundry room. After a while I grew used to the town - I didn't get lost behind the water tower; I learned what Gardner Hall was; and I began to enjoy the company of my suitemate, despite his spittle collection. I also developed a taste for basketball, and during the games I noticed that we had certain heated rivalries - whenever we played one of those teams, I got tense and dug holes in the seat.

Now I realize that school spirit is a pretty goofy thing to some people, but I'll tell you something: I hate Duke with an infernal passion undying. I hate every leaf of every tree on that sickening campus. I hate every fake cherub Gothic piece of crap that litters the buildings like hemorrhoidal testaments to imagined superiority. When I see those Dookie boneheads shoe-polishing their faces navy blue on television, squandering their parents' money with their fratty elitist bad sportsmanship antics and Saab stories, I want to puke all over Durham.

So this is my request, boys of basketball: Tonight, I not only want you to win, I want Krzyzewski calling home to his mother with tears in his eyes. I want Alaa Abdelnaby to throw up brick after brick. I want Rick Fox to take Christian Laettner to the hoop so many times that poor Christian will be dazed on the bench with an Etch-a-Sketch and a box of Crayola crayons. I want Bobby Hurley to trip on his shoelaces and fly into a fat alumnus from Wilmington. Send Thad and Lorna home with their blue tails between their legs.

God bless them Tar Heel boys!

And that, my friends, is why Duke is the bane of our existence! Go Tar Heels!

Random News

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers! I didn't really care who won this game. Seriously, I was completely indifferent. I didn't know there were still two NFL teams left that I didn't either love, like or completely hate! Discover something new every day!

Anoop made it to the second round in Hollywood on American Idol!

In other Chapel Hill-related news, it's snowing! Yes, again! That's two significant snows this winter. Amazing! Let's hope the university administration can make a reasonable decision about how to handle such foreign weather this time.

Perhaps most importantly, many of my favorite stores are having big winter sales! J. Crew (still soaring after their success with the Obama girls), Ralph Lauren, L.L. Bean, and Brooks Brothers (70% off select women's shoes!).

Of course, winter sales mean these stores are coming out with their spring lines! Hopefully, I'll get around to covering those when I have more time. Until then!

More on the Snoguration!

See what I did there? Snow + Inauguration = Snoguration!

Ahem.

This week the South shut down (as usual) once the big, bad snow arrived! Well, parts of North Carolina and Virginia did anyway. (Aside: Can we even consider Virginia and North Carolina Southern states anymore since they went Democratic in the election? Have the other Southern states voted us out yet?) It never ceases to amaze me how Southerners freak when even the tiniest flurry is predicted. (They clearly did not spent their childhood Christmas vacations in Cleveland much less stepped foot in Minnesota! Let me know when the snow is knee or even waist deep!) Chapel Hill was no exception. In all fairness, this was a lot of snow (for the South). We got about 4-5 inches. That's more than I've seen around here in years. So, this time, closings were necessary given buying two dozen snow plows is not a practical application of local capital in North Carolina.

So when the snow started coming down Monday night, my roommate and I were sure, given the weather forecast, the university would close on Tuesday. Can't have students walking or commuting to campus in a Southern blizzard! So when we awoke Tuesday morning to check the administration's decision, we discovered that the University hates us and we would not be sleeping in. I know! So we (begrudgingly) slid walked to campus. It was ridiculous. Only once we were in our 8:00am class did the University send people to shovel snow and spread salt. You know, after we already risked our lives getting to class. Then, to top it off, the University decided to cancel classes starting at 3:30pm. 3:30! That's in the afternoon! What's wrong with this school?! I was pissed. Apparently, I wasn't the only disgruntled one.

Anyway, here are some snapshots I took of the Snoguration (including a massive snowball fight and the hundreds of people who watched the big event in the Great Hall), the only good thing to come out of the University's indecisiveness.

Back to School!

Well, another semester has started. My last as an undergrad. Crap. It doesn't get any better the more I say it. Sigh. Time for more pleasant things.

So, I was watching the American Idol auditions Wednesday night and who pops up but a former Clef Hanger! OK, so that's not how it happened, but I'd like to appear less Clef-stalker-ish (they're so dreamy!). I haven't actually followed American Idol in years, so my odds of just happening upon this gem live were unlikely. But, luckily, I got an email from someone who clearly loves me that former Clef Anoop Desai might be appearing on the audition show becuase he saw a brief clip in a promo. See how little it takes to peak my Clef-interest? Just the possibility of a Clef sends me running back to a show I abandoned forever ago. Long story short: Anoop was ridiculous. Ridiculously awesome! As I pretty much expected him to be. He sang beautifully and with personality. I had a minor issue with Simon calling his outfit "geeky." Ahem. Simon? In America, we call that look "preppy." Has he ever set foot on a college campus? Though, in all fairness, it was a bit borderline. Take that shirt, make it short-sleeved, add a pocket protector, tuck it in, and Simon's spot on. But, as it was, Anoop's look was casual and preppy. And we like that around here! No makeovers needed, thank you. Anyway, thanks to Anoop, I will be stuck watching American Idol this season. Damn those Clefs, their talent, and their gorgeousness. See what they do to me?!

Since this is turning out to be a school-themed post, um, can we quickly (I don't want to linger on the subject, it's so painful) talk about the men's basketball team? And a case of me speaking too soon. Yeah. What the hell?! Talk about a fall from grace. (I just realized that those last few sentences could also apply to my Carolina Panthers. Again, what the hell?! Disappointment is a nasty bitch!) Anyway, let's hope the Tar Heels get their ish together in time for the Big Dance.

P.S. I'm sitting here watching Jurassic Park III on TNT (my somewhat strange love of Jurassic Park is probably best saved for another post) and I just needed to put out into the world how much I love Sam Neill and William H. Macy. Because, well, they're awesome!

Welcome 2009!

Happy New Year! It's finally 2009, the year I graduate and have to figure out what to do with my life. So, obviously, here I am putting that off!

Tomorrow I leave for my ski trip. Yay for easy P.E. credits! Amazing how five days of skiing can accomplish what would otherwise take an entire semester. Gotta love it. And this semester (my last as an undergrad!), my roommate and I are taking scuba in preperation for our graduation cruise. So, hopefully, this semester will rock. Let's hope the professors keep the actual work to a minimum. Who wants to do real school work second semester senior year?! Nobody, that's who.

Anyway, I really don't have much to say, but I was thinking about how I haven't posted in a couple days so I thought I should say something. Maybe something will strike me soon.

The Carolina Panthers Love Me Again!

OK, so they never hated me. But still, they proved it on Sunday. Of course, I thought I would have a heart attack in the process as they kicked a last second field goal (by my beloved John Kasay! Seriously, I've loved that man since I was 8 years old) to defeat the New Orleans Saints in the Superdome. I still don't know why John Fox left 6 seconds on the clock for the kick, giving the Saints another shot to score, but whatever. We won and I'm not going to complain! They secured the No. 2 seed in the NFC and earn a first round bye and a second round home game.

My brother has been plotting how he is going to get tickets when they go on sale Thursday. We have a secret Ticket Master location where we got our tickets to the Monday night game this season. We were the only ones there! At our old haunt, there were tons of people clamoring for tickets. I would really like to go to the game, but I'm planning on going to my uncle's in South Carolina for his 50th birthday with my mother and grandmother. I could probably make it to both, since his birthday is on Friday, January 9 and the game is Saturday night, but I wanted to spend the weekend with my family. Besides, I have to be back in Chapel Hill by Sunday since classes start that Monday.

Then again, playoff games are AWESOME! The atmosphere is the best. We went when the Panthers played Dallas at home in 2003 and it was one of the best Panther games I have ever attended.

We'll see. I still have a couple days to think about it. Ugh. Why can't I be in two places at once!

Anyway, speaking of Chapel Hill and football, my Tar Heels broke my heart losing to West Virginia in the Meineke Bowl in Charlotte on December 27. The game was amazing, and so close! In better news for the Tar Heel Nation, the men's basketball team is kicking ass and taking names. They defeated Rutgers by 22 the other day, but they've also got a couple of tough tests coming up. Tomorrow, they play No. 3 Pitt and then head up to No. 2 UConn. I think those games will determine how good the Tar Heels actually are. So far, they've looked great. Even Rutgers coach Fred Hill praised them saying, "They have no weaknesses."

So, things are looking good in my sports world. The Panthers are headed to the playoffs, the UNC football team played admirably in their first bowl game since 2004, and the men's basketball team are ranked No. 1 and undefeated. I only hope things stay this good!