Have a Nice Day!

When the Smurf did I step on a pigeon?

Take note of what I just did right there, kiddies. That’s a very legit literary technique. I’m not sure what it’s called but the idea (well, my knowledge of the idea anyway) stems from Mick Foley’s autobiography Have a Nice Day! (which is quite possibly my favorite book ever). The opening line to his book is something along the lines of, “I can’t believe I lost my [smurf]ing ear!” The concepto behind this is to instantly draw the reader into the author’s world and engross said person immediately.
Of course, I realize that (1) “When the Smurf did I step on a pigeon?” isn’t quite as intriguing as “I can’t believe I lost my [smurf]ing ear,” and (2) any and all level of instant interest in my story has been dashed by my explaining this practice as I’ve completely taken you out of my world of pigeons, zombies, and bad popcorn and placed you into a boring, conceited academic one. And for that I apologize. So what I’m going to do now is restart my story as originally intended. But don’t get too excited because I really have no idea where I’m going with this post yet, so there’s a fair chance that it’ll end up just being a random amalgam of crap of whatever comes to my mind. Hopefully it’ll turn out as a moderately coherent thought. But anyways, let’s roll this otra vez.
When the Smurf did I step on a pigeon?

As per usual in that horrible business class that I partake in here, I’d crossed my legs (you know, like in a figure four kind of manner) in order to work on my hip flexibility a bit. As such, I noticed right away that on the bottom of my right shoe there was some sort of feather that was sticking to said zapato thanks to some sort of substance that I couldn’t properly identify. I’m not lying to you when I say that that’s exactly what I thought originally. Of course, I meant it jokingly (yeah, I joke to myself, and hence, I randomly laugh a lot too. I’m not crazy, I’m just easily entertained.) as I was pretty sure that I did not, in fact, step on a pigeon. That seems like something I'd remember. Although, I have been doing a lot of smack lately.
Although, those birds are quite prevalent here, so it’s probably only a matter of time before I actually do trudge over the top of one. And if quantum physics has taught me anything (which it hasn’t because I know nothing of the subject except from what I’ve read on Wikipedia and such) it’s that given an infinite amount of time, all possible outcomes will transpire. And since I’m pretty sure that I’ve been in Spain since the dawn of time, eventually I do have to step on a pigeon. Ok, that doesn’t make any sense. Like, if there’s an actual dawn of time, that implies that infinity doesn’t go in both directions. Thus, that doesn’t necessarily mean that my stepping on a pigeon has to happen very shortly. But then again, if time is just a series of successive moments which can be broken down into an infinite amount of increments, then infinity has already occurred, is occurring right now, and will continue to occur into… well, infinity. Wait. What the FRIGG am I talking about? Let’s move on, shall we? So yeah, due to this feather being on my shoe and the fact that this class I speak of is BORING AS CRAP, like a man at the library with a copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I checked out. Honestly, I was surprised that I’d made it this far (65 seconds into the start of the actual class) while still paying attention. I say this because of the brief convo I’d just had before the class started.

I had been talking to Ashley and had asked her where she was from, to which she replied, “Shakopee.” From across the room, Amanda heard this and mentioned how that was pretty close to Chaska (which is where I now assume she’s from). At this point I mentioned how much I love Chaska. This of course confused the peeps around me. Why would someone such as myself with no apparent ties to this town have this seemingly irregular affinity for it? Well, at least that’s what I imagine people we’re thinking. They most likely just wanted me to be quiet. Although, Amanda asked why. Right about here is where I broke into a short diatribe (do short diatribes exist?) about how much I friggin’ LOVE the McDonald’s in that fair city (mind you, this is all taking place in the Spanish tongue, if you will, so that just confounds the confoundment even more). In summary, everything about that place is perfect and it has some great memories attached to it. Let me tell you something, mis amigos, my first meal when I get back in 'Sotaville is going to be some double friggin' cheeseburgers. Probably three of them in fact. And you know what's the best thing about eating three double cheeseburgers? When you finish one, there's still two more. And you know what the second best thing about getting three double cheeseburgers is? They taste good. Durr. But apparently the people of that class don’t share my obsession with this fast food chain as no one really knew how to respond, and they just seemed somewhat confused in general. My professor especially had a completely perplexed look on his face. I looked over at him and nodded my head hoping for his assent or something to that effect. But rather, he just shook his cabeza as if trying to clear it of this nonsense I was speaking. On the plus side, I’m guessing that he’s now okay with the fact that I never speak in class as he's hopefully conjured up some sort of image of my just being a complete idiot. But whatevs, he can think what he wants as long as he doesn’t ask me to give my opinion on capitalism or whatever stupid topic he’s ineffectively speaking on that day.
So I spent the rest of the class period just basically ignoring what he was trying to teach. I copied everything he wrote down on the board into my notebook, though, so I’m pretty confident that given his linguistic abilities, my writing down of the notes and not paying attention is almost certainly more effective than both taking notes AND listening. Thus, I’m going to say that this was the most productive period for that class that I’ve had to this point. So yay for me.

A lot of my thoughts from this timeframe were centered around the fact that I had to register for classes later that day. At approximately exactly 3:00. Yep, sentence fragments are fine, even encouraged, in my writing. So take THAT, Ms. Church! *shakes head* So after this semester, I in theory only have three more left with somewhere between like 47 and 54 credits to take (depending on how everything works itself out). That’s between 15 2/3 and 18 per semester. A bit of a difference. Thus, I was trying to decide what type of killer I wanted my schedule for the next semester to be. Like killer good or killer bad.

The past two semesters (I wish I had a synonym for “semester” as I’m definitely overusing that word) I’ve been able to set up my schedule so I’ve only had to rock classes a couple times a week. Fall last year I no class on Monday or Friday and then last spring I was able to pull Wednesday off in addition to Monday and Friday. Tight. That makes for some hardcore Tuesdays and Thursdays, though, but it’s worth it. Now before you go about calling me a lazy bum, let me just say something. I was SOOOOO unbelievably busy that it was literally like I had class everyday. And a lot of it. Juggling homework, an absurd amount of meetings, all the Crusade-related stuff I do, TKD/training, AND a social life was nuts. I basically only slept 4 hours a night every night. But none of that matters, because there’s still something very mentally pleasing about only having class twice a week that pulls you through it all. Like I said, it’s worth it.

But the point is, I was thinking about how horrid I wanted this spring to be/how easy I wanted the following semesters to be. I know that I’m going to continue to roll with all the stuff I’d been doing in the past, and there was no doubt that some new stuff was going to happen as well (probably a job and hopefully hopefully hopefully training at another gym as well), so I needed to ponder this carefully. I was either going to rock 16 or 19 credits. Big old decision. Eventually (at around 3:00, I suppose), I decided that I was basically just going to destroy myself next semester and take the 19. This entails class from 8:15 am to 8:50 por la noche on Tuesdays and then (including the weekly Cru meeting) from 8:15 to like 10:45 on Thursdays. Epic schedule. 19 credits. 2 days a week. Good gravy I hope I don’t get smashed with like 6 midterms on one day. But whatevs, it’s all hood. Anything that happens like that has been brought on by myself.
My thoughts adventurally (as in a combination of “adventure” and “eventually” because that’s just how I do in life) shifted to the trip to the library that I’d taken that day with Danielle. She’d decided recently that she wanted to procure for herself a library card so she could get her hands on some good Spanish music. This sounded like a good idea to me, and thus, we HOLY CRAP A BIRD ALMOST JUST FLEW INTO MY ROOM!!!!!!! A pigeon, no less, it’s like they know that I’m writing about stepping on one of them… Like he just flapped his way at a crazy and loud clip toward my window (which of course is open because otherwise my presence in this room would raise the temperature to unbearable highs), got right up to it, and then figured out that this isn’t where he’s supposed to be. I guess it kind of makes sense, though, as there used to be like a hole-type area in the building across the alley from me where they would all congregate and such. Recently, that opening has been blocked off, so now they all kind of hang near that place and just basically look sad and confused. Poor little guys. Nonetheless, they needs to stay the heck up out of my room. That’s an adventure that I just don’t need on my hands at this stage in my life.
I know that like a month ago or so, a bat flew into one of the rooms here while some people were watching a movie in one of the classrooms. Erin actually killed it, though, in a fit of BAMF’ness that’s hard to describe properly. The short of it is that she was trying to direct him back out the window by scaring with her sweatshirt. Thus, she kind of snapped it at him to freak him out. Well… she did more than freak him out; she hit and killed him with the piece of apparel. Awesome. But yeah, so apparently flying creatures entering rooms here isn’t as unpossible as failing English is.
Anyways, continuing on, this sounded like a good idea to me, and thus, we both decided that after breakfast on Thursday (the day in question) we would go acquire some library cards and do it al up. This especially made me giggle because I don’t even have a library card in America Land. So yeah… I don’t go get books.

So we defs hit up the biblioteca action and got ourselves some card-age without too much difficulty (outside of the snobbish librarian there. Hm… snobbish is one of those words that really describes itself. You know what I mean? Like the word “snobbish” to me actually IS snobbish. Think about it. And don’t give me none of that “But that’s true for all words” crap, because it isn’t, son.). And shortly thereafter we were searching the shelves of a Spanish library for some solid música. I must say that the collection they have in that building is pretty friggin’ stellar. You could basically rep any type of music you wanted. Spanish, English, Latin, pop, English rock, country, movie soundtracks, and even English. Err’thing you could basically desire.
Danielle and I ended up really achieving in terms of the Spanish type this day as only one of the six (allowed three a piece, we are) CD’s we checked out was as such (sarcasm). She got a Salsa mix, some Michael Bublé, and a bit of Bob Marley whereas I pulled in Stevie Wonder, The Killers, and the soundtrack from Sweeney Todd (noice!). Perhaps the next time we go to this crazy place (which can’t be later than Thursday as we can only have them for a week), we’ll get some Spanish stuff… err… maybe not… I can assure you that right now I’m more than happy listening to Johnny Depp’s surprisingly really good voice as he sings about killing people with a shaver. Mix that in with my roommate’s ridonkulously loud Darth Vader-esque breathing, and I’m good to go (one might even say that I’m g2g). Seriously, the sounds emanating from that kid at this very moment make me think that his heart is only like 4 seconds away from literally exploding. You can’t be in good shape when lying down and watching some sort of Spanish sitcom makes you out of breath. Hm… I may not be the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, but I bet I could quiet him down a bit with my electric razor… Just kidding, but seriously..

Walk It Out

So yeah, due to the fact that I’m not a big traveler, there’s oftentimes a fair amount of free time for me on the weekends. Last Saturday was no exception to this. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon, and I literally had NOTHING to do at all. I had just finished eating what I’m sure was nothing short of an awesome lunch with some great peeps, and prior to that I had hit up some Toledo museum action with Danielle, so I had some extra energy from all that coolness.

It was nothing short of gorgeous outside, so there was little doubt that I needed to be in the afuera area. Now I talk a lot about what I miss from back in ‘Sota, but I can assure you that one of those things is definitely NOT the winter. Spain wins that round by far at this time of the year. Ugh, screw those 9 months of dread and anguish back stateside. Anyways, I decided that running wasn’t the best option for me as I had gone out and done such a thing the day before and had plans to do a leg workout on Sunday. So I needed to have some sort of recovery in there so I could brutalize my legs again the next day.

Thus, what else to do? Well, that’s just an easy and stupid question. Like if I’m going outside and I’m not going to run, it’s pretty obvious that I’m going to walk. Reminds me of how easy all my midterms ended up being. Dag-nab, I wish that my ridonkulous test scores were indicative of my understanding of this stupid language. But meh, I digress as I’d much rather pwn the exams than speak the lengua. I mean, both would be best, but let’s play para realidadsies here, I don’t care enough to become good at Spanish, so let’s just shoot for killer test-age, and so far so good.
Moving on, so I decided to go for to take myself a nice little walk. Yeah, that’s an interestingly crafted sentence, I know. But it’s basically poetry in word form. Think about it… So I threw on my TKD sweatshirt (gots to rep, ya feel me?) and headed out. I was greeted by the always awesome Danika and Lauren upon my leaving of the Fund, and after an enjoyable, brief-little serenade and accompanying dance from them, I was off.

I wasn’t entirely certain of where I wanted to end up, so I just followed the general direction of my normal running path. Not that I really have a standard route for such a thing… well… I sort of do. I basically just run toward the river. Doesn’t matter how I get there, as long as I do. After I arrive at the flowing water area, then I have a rough but general route. But that’s irrelevant right now. So I just marched myself down toward the river.

T’wasn’t (double contraction like-thing FOR THE WIN!) too long before I decided what I wanted to do. See it’s hunting season these days in Minnesota, and I’m REALLY missing partaking in that action, so it hit me the second I got to the river and saw the trees way friggin’ off in the distance that I needed to go toward them and how you say… become one with nature. And just going to throw this out there. There’s a HUGE lack of legitimate nature out here. Trees and grass are definitely at a premium. So yeah, I’ve been scratching a lot of imaginary bugs lately as I’ve clearly been going through quite a bit of withdrawal.
But before wandering off to the tree-age, I decided a nice walk along the path next to the river would serve as a solid starting point to ease into the wilderness. This little path pretty much always lends itself to my runs out here. It’s just a really pretty area. It starts with some fairly decently sized steps that lead down to an area right alongside the river. Awesomeness. The path itself varies from dirt, to sidewalk, to brief stepness, to small log-like bridge, to rocks, and probably some other crap I’m forgetting. Darn fine place. The elevation is pretty inconsistent as well, so it’s really good for optimal running.

I didn’t take the steps down that I mentioned, though, this time. I just walked into the dead grassy area moderately near them and went down the hill leading to the river. I paused along the way to sit on some old rock/wall structures and stare off toward the trees that seemed so very far away. I noticed some people standing probably 274.32 meters away (that’s 300 yards for all my American friends – i.e. ALL OF YOU). I wasn’t quite sure what they were doing at first, but they were definitely standing on some sort of artificial grass next to what I can only assume was the house that at least one of them lived in. It seemed like a very modern (for Toledo) and well kept place. They had a pretty large area as well that seemed to belong to them.

I looked closer and noticed that they were golfing. Yeah. They were golfing. And by that I mean that they were just hitting balls into the water. Not going to lie, that pretty much baffled me. I mean, I saw a golf course a couple weeks ago somewhat between Madrid and El Escorial, but that was a friggin’ course that’s got to be hard as FRIGG to maintain with the lack of rain here. Toledo doesn’t even have grass for the most part, let alone the capacity for golfing. Crazy rich Toledanos and their putting green-like things that when combined with a river double as a driving range.
After this nonsense, I trekked my way down to the path to walk around for a bit. Well, I didn’t actually walk around once I got there really. I found some ducks swimming around near the shore, so I just grabbed me some ground and had myself a seat. I’ve gone out duck hunting with my dad since literally like (yeah, “literally like”) kindergarten, so I’ve seen my fair share of the flying creatures, but I’ve never really just parked myself and watched them do what they do. Turns out they’re fascinating little guys. Just the manner in which they swim is enough to enthrall me. Watching their little legs paddle along is really interesting from a physiological perspective. Just like little feathered, swimming Gary Colemans. They had no issue with my being around them either. A few of them even swam right up to me to take a little gander (pun) at what I had going on. As such, I stared at these little birds for a fair amount of time before I decided that it was time to move on and head treeward.
Along my way to the Puente de San Martín (AKA the bridge that leads out of the main/casco/old school area of Toledo and into the less fortressy part of town) I walked past many a person fishing. Now I’m going to refer to this group of people as fisherman. Not in a sexist manner, mind you, but that’s just what I’m a-going to do, so if you have a problem with that… well… then… yeah, then I guess you just do. Now from a non-Spain perspective, that doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary. However, since I basically own this town, I’m privy to all sorts of privileged information. Thus, I know that in terms of cleanliness, the Tajo River basically makes the Mississippi look like mineral water extracted from the highest, snowiest peak in all of Sweden after being blessed by all of the world’s major religious leaders and getting an endorsement from Oprah. So yeah, it’s safe to say that the Tajo’s a bit sketch.
Right before leaving my perch (another pun) after watching the ducks, I decided to dip my left hand in this sewage-water concoction just for the frigg of it. I figured that it would alter my DNA in some form another. Either I’d get some horrible space-disease, or I’d become some sort of a superhero. I figured the odds were about 50/50 overall, and as a poker player, I’ll take that chance err’time the beat go. Let me tells you, I’m waiting on proverbial pins and needles for the test results to come back from the lab to let me know exactly what irreparable damage I’ve done to myself.
But yeah, every time I go out along the river, I always see a TON of people out fishing. This just straight baffles me. I’ve never seen anyone pull a fish out of that cess pond. Ever. Which isn’t too surprising given the absurd toxicity level of it, but still, you have to wonder why people even try. Infierno, the only thing I can ever imagine being dragged out of there is something like the three-eyed fish known as “Blinky” from the classic Simpsons episode. In fact, if I were to tell you of all the mutant creatures that probably dwell in the Tajo, I assure you that you would flee from your computer in terror.
Anyways, I continued on my journey to the trees that appeared to be oh-so-far away. Of course, with all the grace of a wildebeest on crack, I decided to jack my toe into some sort of protrusion sticking out of the street that I assume was meant to slow down cars. It was actually pretty convenient, though, as I’d crunked the same toe on the opposite foot the day before whilst running. So no longer did I walk with a limp, but rather a banging strut. As such, I strutted my way along the road, up the hill, and out of the city. A steel-town man on a Saturday afternoon looking for the fight of his life. Ok… maybe not so much. I actually wasn’t limping or strutting at all. The toe smash-age damage wore off in about phi seconds, so it was all hood, but whatevs.
I’m not going to lie to you, my friends, one of the pervading thoughts in my head as I walked just off the side of the street doing my best to avoid all the refuse on the ground (which consisted of broken glass/CD’s/lightbulbs/other random objects) was, “I hope Toledo doesn’t have drive-bys.” Yeah, I know that in writing when you talk about someone’s thoughts you don’t put them in quotation marks, but I have creative license here, kiddies, so I’ll do what I want. *scoffs at you* Like, I know that the crime rate in this fair city is apparently extremely low, but you never know. I mean, I’m some dumb blonde American out walking just off a major highway on a Saturday afternoon wearing a University of Minnesota sweatshirt, so there’s probably some sort of a catalyst there…
Turns out that I didn’t get shot at. Like not even a little bit. Yay! I did have 7 cars honk at me, though. But all of them seemed to be happy about the thing. Todas las personas in the cars would just smile and wave at me. Actually made me pretty happy to know how chill the peeps be around here. You don’t get that kind of stuff in Minneapolis. Perhaps in Olivia, but of course, everyone knows me in that town, so that doesn’t really count.

So with this very valuable piece of información in tow, I continued on in my walking. Directly to my left was a wall-like apparatus that separated the road from all the trees I’d been wanting to go check out. I considered jumping it just to see what was up going up in there until I found a posted sign that stated the following: COTO PRIVADO DE CAZA. Which of course translates to “PRIVATE GAME RESERVE.” Intriguing. I definitely still wanted to get up in there, but yeah… maybe not the best idea…
I kept on walking in hopes that the wall would open up somewhere/end, and awesomely and unrelatedly enough, it wasn’t overly long until I got outside of the city limits of Toledo (heck yeah!) and was greeted by a little opening-kind-of-thing that went underneath the highway and appeared to go all the way through to the other side. I paused briefly here and stared at it. Obviously, I mean I just described it for you (albeit poorly), so I clearly had to take at least a quick peek at it. Dumb. Sorry for wasting your time with that last statement. And that one. And that one… I pondered going through there because let’s face it, it’d just be cool to go under the street and pop out on the otro lado. But apparently better judgment kicked in, and I decided against the idea. I’m such a tool of the establishment.
At this point the time was approximately 4:41:23.56, so I was thinking that I should probably start heading back relatively soon to ensure optimal time to continue doing nothing in my room before dinner. I turned around a corner on the highway and found that the little side grass/dirt thing I’d been walking on expanded greatly in this area. Sweetness. I hiked up and around this place until I got to the highest area I could, and I took a look back toward Toledo. You know, from the outside it’s quite the pretty looking place. But yeah… from the inside, not so much. My sweet, suitemate Tom made the observation the other day (in a stroke of comedic genius), that Toledo is basically Spain’s Mankato. Think about it. It’s an hour away from the biggest city (Madrid), it’s hilly as frigg, and the town is unbelievably poorly constructed from a modern planning perspective. A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there (sorry Amy and Paul!).

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m quite enjoying my time here, but that’s not because of how great the city is, because believe you me, they’re ain’t a lot to do here for someone who doesn’t drink… and even for those that do… I like it here because of the fan-friggin’-tastic people here that I’ve been blessed to get to know and to call friends. So thanks to all my peeps here for keeping it real. A’ight, that’s enough of the sentimentality for one post. Let’s get back to the random pointless story of some punk kid taking a walk along the highway on a Saturday afternoon. That just SCREAMS ratings, doesn’t it!? I swear if I keep up with this blistering pace of epic tales there’s no WAY that I won’t get picked up for a second season of “Living the Dream.” YES! *does victory fist pump*
So I’m looking around the area and paying special attention to this little private game reserve dealy going on to the side. Friggin’ A, am I NOT going to hop this wall? What’s wrong with me? Yeah… there was no doubt that I was a-get myself up in there. There wasn’t a good place to do it there, so I started my pilgrimage back toward Toledo knowing that there were several places where the wall was quite short.

Along the way, I passed by the little under-the-highway place that I’d pondered entering before. Ok, time to man up and get down. It was just one of those days, ya know what I mean (man, that jacket is tight! – if you get that reference, you’re friggin’ awesome!). I looked around and saw that there were no cars around at that time, so it was now or never… or rather, then or never, but you feel me, I’m sure. I crouched down and headed in. For a second. Yeah, there was no way that I was going to ramble through that mess. Looked kind of intense in there, so like many a stupid person, I pulled out quickly to avoid any sort of mishap. Definitely not 100% effective, and it surely is something that should be avoided, but I figured that once, just once, it would be ok. Turns out it was. But do NOT try that at home, playas. Bad stuff WILL happen. But yeah, now I can say that I went under a highway in Toledo. Not that that means anything at all, and there’s not even really a good story behind it, but meh, whatevs, it made me feel happy, so that’s what it do.
So yeah, I continued on my merry way until I found an area that looked suitable for wall hopping. It was only about as high as my waist, so it posed no problems at all. A bunch of cars were driving by at that point, so I just kind of sat on the wall and chilled. A looked inside to try and gave myself an idea of what was up. Firstly, there was definitely a lack of animal looking things in there. I spotted some bird hopping about and perhaps a rabbit as well. I couldn’t really tell if it was a shadow or a living creature as it was shaped like a long-ears but it stood stock-still. I quickly grew weary of staring at this creature/shadow and turned back to the highway to see that there were no cars anymore, so I dropped myself down into the reserve to take a little peak about.
No voy a mentir, the place wasn’t that impressive. There was definitely a fair amount of nice pine trees, though; I can say that much. Reminded me of home in that sense. But other than that, there was nothing. No real grass, just dirt, and certainly no animals that would be even the least bit interesting to see. I walked about this place for a short period of time, pa-sha, I even ran for a couple seconds just for the heck of it before I decided that there was no point to being in there anymore. The risk was a tad-bit higher than the reward at that juncture, so being the business guy (for some stupid reason) that I am, I knew the correct decision was to exit the area. But nonetheless, my goal of chilling in the trees had been accomplished for the day. Cool beans.
But alas, my day was not yet complete. I had to cross the street at some point in my slogging back toward Toledo, so as a gangsta, I defs had to do it in style, yo. Had to finish this walk right. So question: What’s a hood such as myself to do, you ask? Answer: dance!. Yep, I awkwardly crip walked, glided, and c-walked my way across a major Spanish highway. You know, no biggie, it’s just how I do. All day, baby, just gangstando!
And yeah, my tense usage is all screwed up in this post. I totally jump from past to present in a ton of places, but yeah… that’s just how it’s gotta be. I mean, I’m a grammar nazi, but I’m lazy first, so no way am I heading back to fix over all those errors. So y’all (and by “y’all” I mean Amy) just going to have to deal, son… err… sister…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMY!!!!!/Camping Trip

So yep, first thing’s first today. I gotta give a shout out to my sister Amy as today’s her birthday! Big up’s, Amy! Hope you’re having a fantastamanastic day!

But all right, that’s really the only reasoning behind this post. Just wanted to show my sister some love today. But there’s no way that I can drop a post that’s this unbelievably short. Just doesn’t seem American. There be a lot of things I could talk about here that would seem relatively poignant/relevant to my life right now (i.e. the election, the fact that this town is comprised of nothing but hills, the notion of putting on new socks for the first time, etc.), but I want to make sure this post gets up today as today is pretty much the only day that’s going to be my sister’s birthday for at least the next year or so.

And since I got a boatload of stuff on tap for the rest of the day, I'll share some other stories/thoughts like those another day. For now I’m just a-gonna take the easy way out. This will be done by sharing with you a little story that I wrote a couple months back about this camping trip that I took up to the great area around Nevis, Minnesota with some of the most awesomest people evers. This was originally a part of a letter I wrote to my brother from another mother, Phil, who had been at basic training at the time of the happenings. I enjoy this little thing here quite a bit, so hey, why the frigg not share it with the world, I say. So anyways, what follows is a somewhat embellished summary of the first couple hours of the first day of our camping trip. Included are some helpful footnotes, but don’t read them until the end of the story. It has been censored quite a bit for the viewing public, though. Not that I really believe in this idea, but again, my grandma might read this. Have fun trying to guess what I actually changed. Make it a game [Ages 8 - infinity. *WARNING* Choking Hazard. Not for children under 8.].

*begin story*

The four unsuspecting kids rolled down the muddy road on the tail of a recently passed thunderstorm in their great, big Envoy; it was a beautiful sight. A silver mist rose from the ground encompassing the surrounding area in an eerie fog. Sliding to a stop in front of Whispering Pines Park and Resort, they found the place to be deserted.
“We’re all going to die,” said our hero Aaron to his cohorts.
“Yeah, but there’s no way we’ll be the first ones to die,” replied the always comical Erik,
“True dat, as the ones who understand that we’re actually in a movie, we’ll definitely survive for a while.”
“Plus, we’re just too smurfin’ funny.”
“I’m going to check out the office and see if there’s anyone in there,” said the ever-so-short Carolyn as she jumped out of the vehicle and walked toward the rundown pseudo-cabin to our left. A suction-like noise followed her with every step as she trounced through the mud.
“Looks like she’ll be the first to go,” said Erik.
“Better her than us,” I retorted.
“Huh… Stevie’s not answering her phone,” reported the lovable character Tom from inside the great, big Envoy.

“Here it goes, Erik. It’s going down. We should probably go with Carolyn just to ensure that she doesn’t die this early.”
“Yeah, good call.” The three of us exited the great, big Envoy cautiously and peered around the campsite. There was no movement anywhere. A dozen or so seemingly abandoned campers, three faded-green, poorly kept bunkhouses, and one ill-maintained road circumnavigating the area were the only signs of civilization to be found amongst the decaying trees and menacing lake to our right. The green-gray sky cast a threatening glow on the entirety of the place. We heard a noise coming from the office and quickly turned our attention back to the returning Carolyn and asked for her results.
“There’s no one there,” she said. “I think we’re alone.” Upon opening the door to vehicle, suddenly a piece of debris rocketed off said door barely missing her[1]. She stumbled back away from the scene in shock.
“What the SMURF was that?!” I said. “How in the blue smurf did something smurf with the great, big Envoy in the 8 seconds we were outside of it?”
“Dude, it’s hitting the fan already,” Erik replied. “All right, screw this. Aaron and I are going to take a walk around this place and see what’s up. You guys keep trying to call Stevie. Maybe call Holly too. I’d tell you to call Sara and Bryan, but yeah… they suck at owning cellphones.”
“Ok,” said Carolyn.
As I walked away, I leaned toward her and whispered, “This is on you; it’s up to you to keep Tom alive.” She nodded her agreement as we walked down the muddy road into the heart of the camp.
“Dude, this is seriously like a horror movie,” he said.
“I know, right. It’s just like Friday the 13th. Pretty much Camp Crystal Lake going on right here. Smurf, tomorrow actually IS Friday the 13th. That’s smurfing smurf[2].”

As we continued down the trail we were startled by a noise coming from the lake to our right. I shifted my sight toward the direction of the noise. “You here that, bro?” I asked.
“It’s a boat!” replied the stud that is Erik Dikken.
“Holy crap, it is! It’s going pretty slow, though.”
“I… don’t think anyone’s driving it.”
“Schnikes, you’re right!” We watched on as this unmanned, water vessel ominously and slowly traveled across the lake. “There’s seriously no one in there[3].”
“A bit creepy.”
“Guys!” yelled Carolyn as she and Tom came down the road in the great, big Envoy. “We got a hold of Stevie. She’s almost here, but she’s kind of lost. You talk to her.” She handed the phone off to Erik as I explained to Tom the happenings of the boat.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s right over there,” I said as I turned my gaze toward the body of water.
“There’s nothing there.”
“No… there’s not,” I replied. I looked over at Erik and pointed to the lake, but he was already aware of its non-existence as he was staring at it and trying to describe it to the easily frightened character that is Christina “Stevie” Haubrich.

He shook his head at it all and got back to business with her. “Ok,” he said, “keep driving. We’re going to come to the road to get you.”
“Stay strong, Tom,” I said as Erik and I started walking back to the mist covered road.
“Ok, you need to turn around and come the other way,” he said to Stevie as I watched a white car turn and come over the hill in the distance. “I think I see you.” The car pulled up to us and rolled down its window.
“Stevie! You’re alive!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, of course, I’m not going to be the first one to die.”
“Yeah, your being the screamer, you’ll have to live for at least a bit,” said Erik.
We all laughed nervously at that as she drove into the camp while we walked behind. Carolyn playing the role of Debbie Downer decided to kill the little bit of joy we were experiencing due to Stevie’s arrival by stating, “Guys, I’m worried about Sara and Bryan. They left at the same time we did, and MapQuest said that their trip should take just as long as ours. We’ve been here for like an hour now.”
“Friggin’ A, this would be a lot easier if they actually had cellphones,” I said.
“Yeah, no smurf,” replied Erik.
“No… smurf…?” asked Stevie in a ridiculous manner[4].
We all stared perplexed at Stevie for a moment before Carolyn jumped in saying, “All right, let’s drive around the camp to see if we can find the camper that Holly left for us last week when she was here with her parents.”
“Ok,” said Stevie as we all hopped into the great, big Envoy.
“Watch out for the muffins!” yelled Carolyn as Stevie barreled into the vehicle and almost landed on the treats.
“What kind of muffins are they?” asked Erik.
“Rhubarb,” she stated.
“Frigg! I gave rhubarb up for Lent!” I exacerbated.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Oh yeah, you’re right. Can I have one?”
“No! You and Erik made fun of them on the way up and flipped over a bunch of them.”
“We only did that to three of them,” he said, “and to be fair, they were smurfing off.” Carolyn sighed and started the great, big Envoy down the path. A short distance down it we were surprised by the sight of an actual person.
“Holy bear on a tricycle!” I yelled. “A human!” The man stood in the path wearing a pair of faded jeans and an old wife-beater while washing his car with a hose. He paid no attention to us at all.

“Is he alive?” asked Tom.
“I think he’s some sort of zombie-robot,” I said.
“Better that than a velociraptor,” Erik retorted.
“Guys, you should seriously go walk and see if you can find Sara and Bryan. Just go down the road for a bit. Nevis isn’t very far,” said Carolyn[5]. “We’ll keep looking for Holly’s camper and try to set it up once we find it.”
“Solid,” I said. “Let’s go rep that, Erik.”
“Money.”
“But I’m jacking a muffin before I go,” I said as I snatched one. We jumped out of the beautiful sight that was the great, big Envoy and left Tom, Carolyn, and Stevie to their own devices.
I looked over to Erik as we walked down the path out of the camp and asked, “Hey, Erik, you want to know how I know that I’m going to get murdered this weekend?” Before he got a chance to reply, I threw my muffin wrapper on the ground and laughed.
“Dude, you just ensured your death and probably mine by association.”
“Haha! Yeah, we’ll see how this works out for us.” We made it to the road shortly thereafter and pondered our situation. “Well, man, I’m not going to lie, I’d be pretty surprised if we got taken out on this walk. Who’d be able to document the experience then?” I asked as I finished the delectable muffin.
“True. We’re probably ok with everything right now,” he said. “Let’s keep on moving.” The road was ri-smurfulously muddy and moderately treacherous as we meandered along it. The portentous mist loomed on either side of us, almost glaring at the amazing characters that Erik and I are.
“What the smurf?” asked Erik. “Is that a car over there?” We gandered over into the haze to see what appeared to be a forsaken white beetle lying dormant next to a dead tree off in the distance. “That’s encouraging,” he sarcastically quipped. We walked on.
Suddenly, an inhuman laugh stopped me dead in my tracks. It billowed throughout the area; it continued on for what seemed to be an eternity. I looked over at Erik who had appeared to be unaffected by it. “What the frigg?!” I asked.
“I don’t know, man, just pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Good call[6].”
We were nearing the edge of the gravel road, right before it turned back into pavement when a truck, driving toward us, passed by. Erik and I both watched it as its brake lights came on. The car slid to an abrupt stop only feet from us. A man leaned out the window and peered at us. Balding, stocky, sporting a goatee, and rocking some flannel, he looked like Larry the Cable Guy’s doppelganger. “You guys need a ride?” he asked in an inviting but yet creepy tone.
“No, thanks,” replied Erik.
“We’re good, sir,” I stated.
“Ok,” he said as he drove off.
“Wow, that was creepy,” said Erik[7].
“Yeah, that guy looked suspiciously like Larry the Cable Guy, and there ain’t NO way I’m getting into a truck with that. Not to mention the hungry look on his face.” *aside* THIS guy is yet ANOTHER reason why everyone hates Americans

“I know, right. Not happening. We’re probably pretty close to Nevis anyway[8]. We’re already back on the pavement.”
“Yeah, good call. There’s that little proprietorship that freaked Carolyn out on the way here that sells all those disturbing little wooden cutouts and interesting pinwheels.” We looked over at the place and the hundred or so awkward, little knick knacks that littered the lawn; people, ducks, bears, and many other animals and objects were strewn all about.

Our attention then shifted to the car that was driving past us, going our way. “Dude,” I asked, “is that the guy who was washing his car at the camp?”
“Yeah, that’s totally him. Looks like he’s wisely getting the crap out of here.”
I shook my head at it all and reached into my pocket to check the time on my phone when I realized I had a missed call. I took it out. “Hm, Tom called me. See what he wants,” I said as I called him back.”
“Hello,” answered Tom.
“Dude, you know that guy who was washing his car all weirdly at camp?”
“Yeah, what about him?”
“Did he leave? I swear Erik and I just saw him in that very car on the road.”
“No, he’s still here. At least he was when we left. There’s no way he could’ve driven past you guys[9].”
I looked over at Erik and shook my head. “Ok… well, what’s up, man?”
“We’re coming to get you guys. We need to go to Nevis and get some stuff.”
“Ok, we’re just on the pavement by that little shop dealy that disconcerted Carolyn on the way here.”
“All right, we’re almost there. Give us a sec.”
“Sounds good. Laters.” I hung up my phone and looked over to Erik. “They’re coming to get us. Should be here shortly.”
“Ok, well, we’ll just keep going.”
“Yeah, legit.”
Suddenly, a rustling noise was heard in the fog to our left. “Whoa. What was that?” Erik asked.
“Holy smurf!” Something’s moving in the mist[10].
“What the smurf is it?!” I yelled.
“It’s big! Move!” We bolted to the other side of the road into the menacing mist to avoid the creature[11].
I could hear the footsteps and the inhuman shriek of the creature as we bounded through the tall grass. Then over it all, I could hear what sounded like a car horn. The great, big Envoy! Oh, what a beautiful sight! “There they are! Run!” We jetted toward it as fast we could. The great, big Envoy screeched to a halt right in front of us. We whipped open its doors as fast as we could and jumped in.

“GO GO GO GO!!!!!!,” yelled Erik as we slammed the doors shut.
“Watch out for the muffins!” exclaimed Carolyn[12].
“SMURF THE MUFFINS! GO!!!!!
“Why?”
“Creature!” we both roared.
“What?”
“GOOOOOO!”
Carolyn finally figured it out and hit the gas to get us out of there. I looked back to see something slink back into the mist. I let out a sigh of relief, glad that I was back in the sanctity that was the great, big Envoy[13].
*Footnotes*

[1] Ok, maybe it didn’t “rocket” out, but something fell off her door.
[2] SPOONERISM! Well... originally it was... The effect is kind of lost in this version :-)
[3] Yeah, for realsies. A pilotless boat.
[4] Ok, this didn’t actually happen. Stevie didn’t really say that.
[5] We later found out that Nevis is 6.3 miles from camp.
[6] Turns out it was inhuman as it was a horse. We found this out as the noise turned into a “nay” shortly thereafter. We also spotted some as well to confirm our thoughts.
[7] Indeed
[8] A little over 4 miles, unbeknownst to us.
[9] He actually wasn’t sure if he’d left or not. Carolyn thought he had.
[10] No, there wasn’t.
[11] We actually saw the great, big Envoy and decided to run across the road to freak them out a bit. Mission sort of accomplished.
[12] She actually said that.
[13] Yeah, this doesn’t belong here, but whatevs, turns out the Sara and Bryan hit some wicked traffic and were just late. They were at the camp by the time we got back. That doesn’t change the fact that they should get cellphones, though.

*end story*

So yeah, I realize that the plot and everything in this mess I wrote is WAY rushed and there’s not nearly enough detail involved in terms of anything, but hey, I wrote this relatively quickly AND it’s part of a letter. Not a novel, kiddies. Not to mention that nobody's going to understand this really except for the people who were there, but meh. So don’t hate. Congratulate.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMY!!! Sorry for wasting your time with a crappy story! :-)

High School Musical

Ok, so think what you want about me because I’m just going to come straight out and say it. I like High School Musical. Yeah. I do. Commence ridiculing me now. Get that shiz out of your systems so we can get down to business here. I’ll wait. And while I do, I’m a-gonna listen some songs from HSM just to show you how much I care. I gotta go my own way, kiddies, y no me importan vuestras opiniones.

A’ight, you ready to roll with the rest this post? Nope? Ok, I’ll give you just a bit more time. *turns up “The Boys Are Back" and twiddles thumbs* Vale, now at this point I’m just going to rock the rest of this blog because I can’t even hear your laughter over the sound of Zac Efron’s and Corbin Bleu’s smooth voices. All right, maybe that was a bit much right there. My bad. Non-sequitur, let me take you into the journey behind how I became a fan of the HSM.

So High School Musical 3 just recently came out, and prior to this a couple girls here (Danielle and Laura) pretty much came to the conclusion that they HAD to see said película as they’re both basically super-fans of the series. For some crazy reason, they seem to enjoy my company and decided that I should join them in this venture of theirs. Now I’m a movie guy; I’ll watch any flick once, and heck, I’ll jump on any opportunity to chill with two peeps as cool as they be, so I was pretty much in. “¿Por qué no?” I say.

But just for the sake of those who are currently questioning my manhood and still don’t like the fact that I agreed to watch High School Musical out of my own free will, I ask that you enjoy the following imaginary conversation. *note* For those of you familiar with the old school TV series known as “The Wonder Years,” please read my mind’s parts with that voice and overall tone (and throw in some of Homer Simpson’s thoughts as well). For those of you unfamiliar with this show, please read said parts with the accent of a cracked-out Chris Rock :

[Danielle] So Laura and I have pretty much decided that you need to come see High School Musical 3 with us on Saturday.
[Aaron] Hold on a sec, Danielle, I gotta finish killing this dragon first to ensure the safety of our nation’s children. For as we all know, the children are our future. *Punches dragon in the face, thereby exploding it*
[Laura] All right, well done, Holmes. So what do you think?
[Aaron’s Mind] Really? They want me to see High School Musical 3 with them? There must be a way out of this. You got this, mind; think. Think!
[Aaron] I haven’t actually seen the first two, so yeah…
[Aaron’s Mind] Bravo. *clap clap*
[Danielle] That’s fine; we’ll catch you up before we go.
[Aaron’s Mind] Try again, broseph
[Aaron] When would we be gone? The earth’s core is scheduled to stop spinning at around noon-ish, so I have to go inside this crazy old world with some nukes and make sure that doesn’t happen.
[Laura] We’re not leaving until like 5 or so.
[Aaron’s Mind] Ok, you’re on your own now.
[Aaron] Shut up, brain, or I’ll stab you with a Q-tip.
[Laura] What’d you just say about your brain?
[Aaron’s Brain] Tool.
[Aaron] I said, “Do it up. I gotta train now, but let’s dab in youtube later.”

There we go, hopefully that makes y’all feel better. If not, here’s a pic of my being awesome that can hopefully get me back some of your respect.
So thus, last Tuesday after the awesomeness that was our weekly Salsa class (speaking of which, we be getting ready to ROCK the Fund’s talent show in a few weeks, so watch ya’selves and put on your excited hats for that), we meandered over into the Sala de Estar (or whatever the frigg that room is called where all the Puerto Ricans hang out) with Danielle’s laptop to chill and rep it up. Both the girls were pretty tired, so we only watched the first half of it, but I must say that I found myself enjoying it. And then of course we completed the film the next night at like 1:30 in the morning. Bueno.
So I was halfway to being caught up, and I was feeling pretty good about the whole situation. I caught myself several times singing “We’re Breaking Free” the next day, so you KNOW t’was mad-legit. I’m sure the entirety of this building was overjoyed to hear my fantastic voice singing the HSM soundtrack all day in the halls. Now you see what I did right there is an example of the humor technique known as “sarcasm.” My words in this situation fit the profile of this term in the manner that I (a) Don’t have the best voice and (b) the people of the Fundación actually probably weren’t thrilled to hear me. I swear sometimes that I’m a comedic genius :P
Moving on, so then on Thursday night (as opposed to going out like most do on this day) Danielle, Laura, and I stayed in to ver High School Musical 2. Again, very enjoyable film. Good songs. Good dances. Cute story. Yeah. Cute story. I said it. Step off. But wait, in our browsing of youtube after watching HSM 2, we stumbled upon a link to the third installment of the series. NO FRIGGIN’ WAY! We simply HAD to check that out.

Now I say this lightly, the quality was terrid. Yep, “terrid.” Pretty sure I made that word up. I figure that if “horrible” gets “horrid,” doesn’t it stand to reason that “terrible” should get “terrid”? And just like back home, in the interest of keeping things fair among siblings (which in my mind these two base words are), I have to give to each of them equally. Thus, I say “terrid.” Please enjoy this word and spread it to your neighbors if you so desire. Anyways, it was really tough to fully see what was going on in the movie. Extremely pixilated it was. The majority of the dialogue and songs could be heard, though, but there were defs several parts of not so much. In fact, I’m pretty sure I heard someone’s phone ring over the sound of the movie at some point. So yeah, high quality. But nonetheless, we watched High School Musical 3. Hecks yeah, son! This was especially good because, you know, I’m in Spain. Thus the film would be in Spanish in the theaters. But now we’d have a much better idea of what was going down.
Even after this preliminary viewing of the flick, there was still much anticipation of seeing it in theaters. I mean, c’mon, theater > Danielle’s laptop. Slighty. So Saturday afternoon we assembled our crew and headed off to the bustop for what could only be good times and victory. Our normal ensemble of Danielle, Laura, and me was joined by Colleen and Wilmer on this day. Tight.

We jumped off the bus at 5:58 in the pm ready for some awesomeness. Problem, though. The movie was supposed to start a las 6. Wait, that’s not an issue, you statesiders say; there’s always like 20 minutes of previews before the movie starts. Falso. Spain doesn’t rep like that, the movies always start at their allotted times. Ok… so what does that mean for us and this story, you ask. It means we friggin’ run. Yeah, run to the theater to catch High School Musical 3. We bolted up the stairs to the cinema as Laura yelled, “What team?!” “Wildcats!” we retorted. Yep, that’s a reference to the series for those of you who haven’t caught the fever yet. We procured our tickets as quickly as possible and headed into the room of viewing.
We noticed right away that sadly we had missed the first scene of the movie, but whatevs, it was still all good as we were only a couple minutes late. We found our seats in the second row and plopped ourselves down do enjoy the rest of the movie. Ballin’. And disfrutarnos we did. The movie was mad-tight on the big screen. I was able to understand the vast majority of the whole Spanish thing that was going on, so it was all hood… or “casucha,” if you prefer. I must say, though, that it was kind of comical hearing all the characters speaking Spanish and then hearing the songs in English (as they weren’t translated), but I’m sure that only added to the experience as a whole.

We rolled out of the theater and back absolutely perfectly in time for dinner as well. Clearly this was a fantastic day. But I’m not going to lie you, my friends and well-wishers, I wanted more.

Apparently, the gangsta who is Laura felt the same way about this. We talked about the idea of seeing it again at breakfast the next day (Sunday), and then at lunch we made plans to go rep it that very day. Noice. This time it was just going to be her, me, and the third maliante here in Lily.
The movie was to start at 3:50, but it became quite obvious to us at about 3:25 as we stood at the bustop that we weren’t going to be able to make it. So we headed back for home, grabbed some snack-age and Laura’s I-pod (fresh off downloading the HSM 3 soundtrack) and then slowly made our way to the mall in Poligono. Like yesterday, the showing didn’t start until 6, so once got there we had plenty of time to just chill, eat some ice cream, take some pics, and just basically live the dream.

I will say that the Sunday movie-going crowd is a bit different than the Saturday one. Whereas the previous night’s group was pretty chill for the most part, Sunday’s was full of screaming girls. And I’m pretty sure that I was the only male in my age range there as well. Whatevs, let them have fun, I say. It’s HSM 3; it’s supposed to be cheerable.

Turns out the movie’s just as good the third time around as the first as not surprisingly, we all quite enjoyed ourselves. As such, the high of awesomeness from just having seen this movie combined with the fact that Laura had the soundtrack on her I-pod basically could only mean one thing: dance party at the bustop afterwards (one might even say that we were “gangstando”). Sometimes it’s easy to see why the rest of the world hates Americans. I mean frigg, we sing and dance in what I’m sure is an obnoxious manner without a care in the world at the bustop in a foreign country. But as stated, I didn’t have a care in the world at the point, so break yourself, Spain! It was quite funny, though, when the occupants of one car yelled something that I’m sure wasn’t too supportive of our endeavor as they drove past. Even funnier was the response that Lily yelled back to them. Now since my grandma might actually read this post, I’m not going to repeat what was said. Instead I’m just going to treat you to this cute little picture. Quite possibly the highlight of the night, though, for me occurred on our walk back to our place of eat/sleep/study/err’thing. This complete stoner looking individual passed us by and asked something in Spanish that I didn’t really understand. He looked like a less-than-reputable individual, so I just gave him the old standby of “I don’t speak Spanish.” Of course then he switched over to broken English, but it didn’t matter as Lily (who’s Puerto Rican and thus understands the language) denied whatever his request was. She then turned to me and explained (in Spanish, so I might be off here, but I’m pretty sure this is the gist of what she said) that the guy wanted some paper so he could roll some joints. Huh, turns out he WAS a stoner. Now I don’t know why, but for some reason I like the fact that some dude asked me if I could hook him up with such an item. Now y’all know that there’s no way that I’d ever do weed, but the whole thing just makes me smile and giggle in manner that’s reminiscent of Laura watching Troy Bolton sing and dance with Gabriella Montez in the rain on the roof of their school; bust out the Crayolas and color me “Tickled Pink.”
One would imagine that this would now be the end of my High School Musical 3 journey, but alas, you’d be incorrect on that front. Danielle, Laura, and I spent a couple hours together later that night (still Sunday, broheims) youtubing and listening to related items. And after Danielle went off to sleep for the night, Laura and I started trying to rock some of the dances from the threequel. Pretty much impossible to get that shiz down over youtube. Thankfully, she’s a former danceliner, so she’s got skillz (with a “z,” mind you, so you KNOW she’s good), so it’s going to be on her to get the choreography down and then teach me. A daunting task, indeed, but if anybody can pull that off, it’s Laura as she’s the most gangsta person I know. And yeah, it’s possible to be gangsta and enjoy HSM. It seems like a contradiction, but believe you me, it’s possible.

So yeah with that being said, I’m going to maintain my man-card as gangsta and High School Musical CAN go together hand-in-hand. And honestly, if I could sing I would’ve done musicals in high school, but seeing as how I can’t, I was relegated to just rocking the One Act Play (which was AWESOME, btw), and err’body know how I like to awkwardly dance, so it’s just good stuff for mis intereses. And most importantly, as Laura so wisely pointed out last night, singing one of these songs to someone of the opposite gender would basically make any girl putty in my hands, so yeah with that :P Here’s a little sample for ye from “Can I Have This Dance”:

Take my hand, I'll take the lead

And every turn will be safe with me

Don't be afraid, afraid to fall

You know I'll catch you through it all

Yeah, that’s four lines of dinero en el banco. And a secure bank at that. Given today’s economy, you can’t really always be sure, but with this you can be. So yep, if anything I’m actually MORE of a man for being a fan of High School Musical.