What are ya doin New Years.....

....New Years eve?

2005. What a freakin momentous year. I'm sad to see it go, but I'm looking forward to 2006. A long winded recap of all that has happened this year should probably go here, but...eh. You get the idea.

I just found out via e-mail that my two good studio buddies Rory and Phyl are engaged as of Monday. It was such a happy surprise! I saw their romance blossom in studio waaaaay back in 2002. I'm totally bummed that I can't go to their engagement party on New Years Eve. Here's hoping I can go to the wedding....whenver that is.

Instead.....I'll be in Disneyland to ring in the new year with Matt and Kim and assorted company/siblings (Chris and Shirley will be there with Seth and his gf). The trip as a whole I'm sure will be fun....but...but...the thought of being surrounded by kissing couples and screaming children at midnight on New Years Eve....ack. Slightly depressing at the moment, but I'm pretty sure once I'm actually there I'll be over it and distracted by the fireworks.

I also have delusions of meeting a cute cast member before the clock strikes 12:ooam to dodge the god-damn-it-being-single-on-new-years-sucks-monkey-balls bullet. A guy can dream....and Disneyland is where dreams come true right? Magic and pixie dust? Right? Heh.

Happy Christmas Eve Day

There magic in the air this evening
Magic in the air
The world is at her best, you know
When people love and care
The promise of excitement is one the night will keep
After all, there's only one more sleep til Christmas

-Kermit the Frog

A Friendly Reminder....

tarquin99: Remember that there is hope out there!!!

I had a not-so-great Thursday night....nothing terrible happened but it put me into a funk today. On days like these it feels really good to have friends who will take the time to brighten things up a bit. Whether it be watching Desperate Housewives on dvd with me (Eric), bringing a puppy over to visit (Candice), or just leaving a nice message for me on AIM while I was away (Morgan). Thanks guys.

In other news, I finished my first semester of grad school today...and I feel pretty good about the whole experience.

And now, time to turn in...*early* so I can be fresh and merry for the first ever Perry-Sias Holiday Party in Mountain View :)

A Scored a Goal!

In PE that is. To end the semester, we played a version of water polo. Two teams. My team chose me to sprint to get the ball. Me, the guy always picked second to last in every team sport in high school PE! Hehe. And then, I scored the last goal!

This was unprecendented. I've never had a people look to me for leadership in an athletic context. In high school PE the only goal was to survive and I've more or less avoided participation in sporting activities since then.

I'm so glad I took my swim class. It was a last minute decision. It's ironic that compared to my planning classes with their projects and drawings and lectures and papers....I feel like I gained the most this semester out of swimming.

It got me back in the pool, which I forgot how much I really did love. It put me back in shape. I met some really cool people. Most importantly, it made me feel good about my health and my athletic ability. . .made me feel a lot more well-rounded.

I feel GOOD right now! I scored a goal! :-D

November in a Nutshell

Free at last!

....well not quite.

But with one major term project turned in and the other one in the bag, all I've got between me and winter break is a final next Thursday and some other minor things. Then, it's time for holiday parties, Christmas, New Years in Disneyland....and a month of intense catch-up on the Mountain View book.

But for now, I have a moment to breath. The weight is slowly being lifted off my shoulders, the stress level is going down. And I can finally update this thing with photos from the month of November. So! Here we go.

-------------------------
Julie and I celebrated our birthdays with the whole gang on November 11. After finding out that the wait at Cheesecake Factory would be over four hours (stupid USC fans) we ended up at a really nice Thai restaurant South of Market. After dinner we hit up the clubs. I was feelin pretty sick, but we all managed to have an awesome time anyway.

November birthdays rock.

The whole group at dinner.

The next day we all saw Cal get beat by USC. Eh. Had a fun time anyway. Next year Trojans, Next year.
That night Lauren drove up to go bar hopping in Berkeley. Kay and Julie got pretty drunk. The rest of us just watched and laughed ;-)

------
All right- Fast Forward to Big Game Week 2005!

Bonfire!

Bonfire Rally night was fun as usual. I went with Preeti and my friend Eva. Eva, a first year MCP student from China had a blast at the bonfire. The campus was lit up all pretty yet again in blue and gold lights. Ahhhh the Spirit of California rocks my world. Haha.

Eva was impressed by the Bonfire.
True Blue. So pretty.
Looking nice.
They upgraded back to big candles with cups instead of last year's birthday candles which dripped hot wax on everyone. Good job Rally Comm.

Big Game!
The game itself was a blast. Cal fans turned Stanford Stadium into Memorial Stadium south. Our crowd vastly out-numbered the Stanford fans, taking up nearly 2/3rds of the stadium. The student section was loud and tons of fun, and the Cal alumni were also really involved in the game. Of my three Big Games at Stanford, this one was by far the most fun. It also helped that the team smacked Stanford and won 27 to 3 thanks to fourth-string quarterback Steve Levy. The chants of "LeeeeVY" and "U-C-Davis" were great.

Me and Preeti at my dad's pre-game tail gate.
One example of the crazy-ass crowd surfing going on in the student section.
Cal wins! Preeti and I take a moment to capture the moment as the clock runs out.
Kay and Dan ended up going with Eric to the game too! So we all met up back at my dad's tailgate along with Preeti, Chris, Shirley, Seth and his gf to eat burgers and celebrate. The night ended at Kapp's Pizza in Downtown MV where my mom joined us for more food and drink.

So much fun! I never want to miss a Big Game. Ever.

---------

Thanksgiving!

The day went off without a hitch. My grandparents were exceptionally pleasant to spend time with (grandma's hearing aide was working and grandpa wasn't being grumpy) The day after we even drove to San Francisco in the late evening just to walk around and see the lights.

I caught my grandpa showing my grandma his last roses of the season in the front yard. Awww.
My mom sets up a small table for 23. Haha. Nothing like a Sias family gathering.

Me, my dad, and Chris in front of the tree in Union Square. And we'll end this post with a picture of that beautiful tree, a preview of what December has to offer!

Happy Holidays folks!

Battle of the Bulge

...the bulge on my back that is.
Alternate Title: My Lovely (not lady) Lump....
Alternate Title 2: The Evil Cyst Lord

..ever since turning 23 (ancient) I feel like my body has been waging a war of annoyance against me. Putting me in the most pain and discomfort without actually dishing up anything severe or life threatening (thank god). Either way it sucks. I've pretty much been wavering between a cycle of kinda sick, down right sick, and recovering from a cold ever since my birthday. I have a cough, and cankersores. I feel gross.

And the icing on the cake. A cyst. A benign cyst that decided that this week would be a *great* week to get infected. On the base of my neck in the back. I made an appointment to have it checked out for next Wednesday, but after I had doctor Kay look at it and tell me to to go to urgent care, I resolved to be a big boy and walk over to the Tang Center urgent care bright and early this morning right when they opened to have it dealt with.

Right decision. Because the longer I waited, the worse the infection would have got. They saw me right away, and I spent the morning on my back with a doctor sticking needles in me, cutting me up, and squeezing puss out of the cyst. Lovely I know. Aren't you glad I shared? To top it all off, they gave me tetanus shot.

So here I am, with a huge ass bandage and loads of tape covering a small but open wound just underneath my shirt collar (at least it doesn't show).

Quite the ordeal.

But you know what? I'm happy. I don't have to really worry about that thing anymore, cause it really was worrying me. And now that the good doctor has launched a counter-attack on it I'll be feeling better soon, and maybe all my other minor health problems will go away since my body is no longer wasting energy fighting the evil cyst.

And I'm also happy because I dealt with something all by myself. On my own health insurance. With my own money. On my own gumption that this was something that needed to be dealt with.

And I'm also happy because the people in the Tang Center were super nice and friendly today. Not what I expected.

And that my friends, brings me to a close of my most disgusting and unflattering post ever. But hey, I know ya love me, cysts and all. ;-)

Haul Out the Holly

My poor neglected blog.

I just deleted a whole entry I decided not to post. It was too whiney. Whining about my term paper due Tuesday and the book due in March ruining my Winter break.

Screw that mentality. I'm done with it. I'm going to accept that the book is going to be a huge part of my Winter Break, and try to have fun with it and remind myself that it's a dream come true. As for this weekend, I'm going to stop worrying about my school projects because I know that in the end, I'll get them done and do a kick-ass job too.

So tomorrow, I'm going to haul down the boxes of Christmas decorations and help my family start decking the halls. I'm going to work on my paper and get the first draft done. I'm going to edit the introduction to my book. I'm going to start putting up the Christmas lights at my grandparent's house.

And I'm going to enjoy every minute of it, or at least try.

Thanks!

Thanks for all the facebook messages and wall postings!

Thanks for all the e-mails!

Thanks for the IMs!

Thanks for the phone calls!

Thanks for dinner!

Thanks for enjoying cupcakes after dinner (and thanks to Julia for the cupcakes!)!

You all made my birthday. :-)

I'll be 23

I'm no longer living in my regrets.
I'm no longer waiting around for the right time.

I'm turning 23 tomorrow. And the lyrics to the song (which I've posted on this blog, at least once before) don't apply the way they used to.

And that, my friends, is a reason to celebrate.

Sing it to me Alicia

Round and round and round we go.
Will you ever know?

Lauren's funny

My away Message:
dengrove is getting ready to go to vegas
i'm getting ready to go to turlock, ca

[unfair!]

Lauren P's responce:

l p r o f e i t: but i hear turlock is beautiful this time of year
l p r o f e i t: and some call it the vegas of the central valley
l p r o f e i t: at least, that's what i hear.

Yay for Turlock.....Vegas with cows.

Halloween in MV

While everyone and there mom heads to the Castro for Halloween, I've always chosen to return to Mountain View to put together and help run my family's haunted house. It's hard to believe we've been doing it for 9 years now. It's gotten a little better each year too. This year we greatly enhanced the Haunted Mansion-inspired "pepper's ghost effect"...basically using mirrors and glass to create the optical illusion of a ghostly woman (we call her La Llarona) appearing and disappearing in a room.

The haunted house has really become a great tradition and something that not only my family but also a lot of the neighborhood families look forward to now. Each year it seems like more people come...this year we even had minivans of people pull up to our house to take a look, and at one point the line to get in went all the way down the driveway to the street.

And it's not like it's the only gig in town. Over on the other side of Old Mountain View are two far more elaborately decorated haunted houses. But what makes ours different is that it's more human...more friendly. We have things for little kids. We're not gory. We always ask people if they want to get scared or just look. Everyone that goes through it either exits screaming and laughing or just smiling. It feels really, really good to give my neighbors something special to enjoy every Halloween.

This year, was also impressive in terms of who showed up from my family and friends. 5 of my mom's six siblings were there. A whole bunch of cousins. Both of my dad's brothers, all three of my grandparents, and a lot of friends too: Lauren Berger, Jen, Eric, Dan, Julie, and Wycee! And there were enough of my mom's green enchiladas to go around for everyone!

So it was a great night, a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to next Halloween already :-)

Here are the photos:

Me and Jen and the remote-control rat.


My Auntie Elise and the cutest little monkey-baby ever, my cousin Peyton.

My Nina Lydia and my mom with the new baby cousin of the family, Carolyna

My Uncle Ric had a great sumo-wrestler costume, too bad this photo is blurry!

My cousins Lisa and Marisa


My brother Chris was nothing more than a Davis SID

Dan! Julie! Me! Jen! Lauren! Eric! Wycee! and baby Peyton!

The Berkeley crew + Jen


A long line of neighbors waits to get into the haunted house.


My cousin Lisa's kid Angelica, hiding behind the fence having a blast being the best talking tree ever (but not the Stanfurd tree because he's a very bad tree...her Cal alumni parents have trained her well).

And we'll close with this shot of Julie taking a turn at being the scary "chain saw" (leaf-blower) person that provides our haunted house with its grand finale.

November

It's the second day of November. Shit.

With all the stuff I have due by the end of this month, I kinda have an idea what a turkey must feel like right about now.

November is usually my favorite month, and no, not just because of the 9th. I love Thanksgiving and the anticipation of December and the holiday season. But if I don't focus and start getting my work done, it's just going to be one creeping deadline after another from here till the book is due in March.

I resolve to make today my last day of time-wasting. From now on I'm reverting back to the studious guy you all knew and loved as an undergrad. No more slacking off.

Weekends? They'll be spent not in the City but in Mountain View doing research for the book.
Thursday nights? Well that's prime time to work on my three projects...who needs happy hour anyway.
Facebook? Never heard of it.

Yeah right.

But seriously, it's time to crack down and chip away at this procrastination-induced guilt I've built up since school started. November might already be a lost cause, but if I start getting on top of things, I can at least save December and January. Wish me luck.

City Trip

On Saturday Kay, Dan, and I picked up Julie in the City and spent the afternoon in Union Square. It was a beautiful day and we had a really nice time. Here are some photos (I'm trying to be better about uploading photos...digital cameras are both a blessing and curse):

The fog rolls into the Bay but the sun shined on the City the whole time we were there. The view from the bridge was awesome, and traffic slowed down in just the right spot.
Kay enjoys the sunshine and the view from the back of Dan's car.

Kay and Julie in Union Square.

Group shot! Such tourists. Hehe.

Dan and I eagerly awaiting the burgers we're soon to eat...it's hard to go to the City and not stop at Taylor's Refresher in the Ferry Building. Yum!

...and see Julie, I didn't post the picture of you swinging your hair around all crazy-like that you wanted to delete of my camera. ;-)

Halloween-esque Shingdig Thing

So, at the last minute we decided to throw a little Halloween get together at our house on Friday night. Everything came together quite nicely, we had plenty of drinks, candy, and pizza and a cool mix of friends, both new and old gather round the TV to watch some ridiculous scary movies. Here are some photos:

Something gory must have just happened in the werewolf-puberty-menstruation (eric bohman would have loved it) movie "Ginger Snaps" judging from the looks on Preeti, Chris, Vicki, and Morgan's faces. Especially Vicki. Hehe.

..or on me and Jacob's face. We kind of got into a photo war trying to get snap shots of people when they were grimacing the most.
Dan caught me pointing the camera at him. Kay looks concerned. Jeremy isn't even looking.

Dan, Julia, and I concocted this vodka laced drink called "witches brew" that Dan found the recipe for off the food network website. A larger bowl filled with Dan's beloved dry ice surrounded the punch bowl, making for a pretty awesome effect that entertained us almost as much as the second movie...

The more Dan drank the witches brew, the more he loved his dry ice.

Eric finally made it home pretty late, but in time for us to hang out and take a 2614 Regent Roomie photo...awwwww. :-)

Keg Stand

I did a keg stand tonight. In the Wurster Hall courtyard of all places. I was challenged by Ian to beat him, which I did, by a second...after getting beer up my nose.

Grad School is weird.

Hoodie

Today on my way to Smart Alex's with Dan I saw someone in Rasputin wearing my hoodie. The brown and blue one which has become a staple of my wardrobe this semester. I wanted to jump them, strip them of the hoodie and run away with it. It is my hoodie and mine alone. I had to go to two freakin Ross-Dress-For-Lesses to find it (I had a gift certificate)and it was the only one on the rack, so that must mean it's the only one in the world...right? right?

Stupid people wearing my clothes.

...and now, to completely shift gears...

I guess I never wrote about the Saint Francis game in detail...well, it was a ton of fun. I went with Jen, Lauren Berger, Chris, Shirley, and my parents. We met up with some other people from our respective classes and took a seat in the aisle next to the band which, to our amazement, now has snazzy uniforms...with hats. (oh, and we now have a color guard, cheerleaders, a mascot, and the micmen that Chris started....it's like something out of the early 1960s!)

There were about 8,500 people there. For a high school game. In California. In the Bay Area. This is not typical, but this was not a typical game. It was my high school's homecoming, its 50th anniversary, and against are arch-rival, Bellarmine..an all boys Jesuit school in San Jose.

Saint Francis pulled off a come from behind victory with a touchdown in the last 27 seconds, it was a thrilling roller-coaster ride of a game. I guess my little brother has rubbed off on me, that and I've gained a lot of self-confidence lately...because I got up and coaxed the crowd of Saint Francis alumni and families to get up and make noise for the team multiple times while Chris reassumed his role as micman and did the same from the track during the last few minutes of the game. It worked, they got up and made noise, and I think it made a difference.

There's something extremely gratifying about going back to Saint Francis with enough self-confidence to put myself out there like that. It reminds me how much I've grown and changed since I was a student there. High school was fine, but it's nice to look back and be reminded how much I've changed, for the better.

Your Heart is an Empty Room

And all you see
Is where else you could be
When you're at home
Out on the street
Are so many possibilities
To not be alone

-Death Cab

Fingers Crossed

I think I need another come from behind victory. Two just wasn't enough :-).

Rain on Down

Friday night/early Saturday morning I found myself lying near the window of some executive's corner office on the 27th floor of one of the towers in the Embacadero Center. I was there for at least 15 minutes or so just watching the light rain fall on the bay and the Ferry Building below me. It was one of those absurd but beautiful moments when time kind of stands still and you just think, wow...I wouldn't want to be any place else right now.

How I got there is not that interesting of a story...after a few failed attempts to find a club that didn't charge a cover over on Broadway... Steph, Dan, Julie, Laurel and I decided to ditch Bobby and his friend in North Beach and head towards the Financial District to hang out in Julie's office. Original plan was to take some wine up there, but alas, Safeway was closed by then.

We were all wet, freezing, and *slightly* buzzed. The rain had caught us off guard that night. Sometimes getting caught in the rain is irritating or depressing. But usually for me it's funny, exciting, makes me feel like a kid again.

The rain made Friday night memorable. And the more I think about it, the more I realize how many of my most vivid memories involve rain.

When I was exploring Boston on my own I got caught in a massive thunderstorm and had to hide on the portico of Fanueli Hall. It was pouring when I ran out of the Disney-MGM Studios with my family in our newly bought rain ponchos, pushing my mom in a wheelchair as fast as we could(she had just had an emergency gallblader surgery)... we were soaking wet by the time we had packed into the rental car. I have a similar memory of the four of us laughing and running around Scottsdale, Arizona one night after being caught in the rain and seeking refuge in an ice cream palour.

It was raining on Mountain View's 100th birthday as I stood with hundreds of other die-hard Mountain Viewers to see the dedication of Centennial Plaza. I have lots of memories of rainy days in Mountain View when, as soon as the first drops fell I would run to the closet, put on my red galoshes and yellow rain coat and go stomp in the puddles that always filled the end of West Dana. I remember towards the end of the big drought in the late 1980s when it poured for the first time in ages, and realizing that my little brother had never really seen rain like this before that he could remember.

It was raining when Kat and I took the GREs in the City and first saw our beloved "Great Fart Quake of 1906" sign, and when Erik and I went to Taylor's refresher during Finals week to take a break from studying last semester. In fact, my earliest memory of being in the City is a rainy night around Christmas when my uncle still lived there. We got caught in a storm while visiting Union Square, I remember running down the street under the awnings and into the BART station soaking wet (hmm, also my first memory of BART).

The more I think about it, the more rainy memories pop up. I'll stop though..don't want to bore you anymore than I already have.

So, in conclusion: I've been a lot more appreciative of those wonderful perfect sunshiney days lately , but I think I'll always love the rain.