I've survived a full week of college! Yay! Anyway, nothing terribly exciting happened during the week, but the weekend...that's where the stories are.


So, the plan for the weekend was to visit some family friends in St. Louis. My parents picked me up at Champaign at 9:00 in the morning. I was exhausted, of course, 'cause I almost never wake up that early on a Saturday. My parents bitched at me in the car but that's to be expected; they do that all the time so why should this time be any different? After about 30 minutes of bitching, they calmed down and the rest of the car ride went pretty smoothly.

We get to St. Louis about three hours later, and after getting lost about three times, we finally got to our friend's house. 30 seconds later, their son (Shan), who's about two years older than me and currently attending a 6-year medical program, pulls into the driveway. We all say hi and all that stuff you say to each other after a long separation. Then the adults split from me and Shan, them on the inside and catching up, us on the outside BBQing and catching up.

Shan and I talked when we last saw each other around Christmas time and we sorta picked up the conversation from where we left off. He knows about the problems I have with my parents and he reminds of the advice he gave me last time. He's a good guy who's been through a lot of the same shit I have, so it was nice to talk to him. He then told me about some the crazy partying shit he's done and then about what he has planned out for us to do that day and the next day. We were going on a float party, which is basically us on the river with lots of alcoholic drinks and friends. Interesting, especially since I don't drink and don't like the taste of alcohol.

Anyway, after the nice lunch, me and Shan headed out to do stuff. We stopped off at a movie theater arcade and played some air hockey. The first game ended in a tie but I beat him the second time. And afterwards, I rubbed it in. Hehe. I told him about how I wanted to go to WashU and see Ning. Instead, he called one of his friends and asked him to pick Ning up for the little get-together we were going to later. His friend, Jack, agreed and it was all set.

Shan and I drove around a bit to waste time before the party but we still got there before all the other people. Went out with Sherry, the girl who's throwing the get-together, to Blockbuster to get a movie. We eventually decided on "The Girl Next Door". Went back to Sherry's house and by that time, everyone was there. Mingled a bit. I got to see Ning for the first time since graduation so that was cool. Mingled some more and played some poker, which I learned just that day. Then me, Shan and Ning went back to Shan's house for a quick dinner, and afterwards came back to Sherry's house for the movie.

Now, we had to work for that movie. We put the DVD in but we could only get the background sound to work. None of us knew how the system worked so after about ten tries at fixing it, we just gave up and waited for Jack to get back. We then went back and forth between watching "Alien" and "The History of Sex". Gotta say that the latter was very interesting to watch. Once Jack got there and eventually fixed the sound problem, we watched the movie. It was decent, had lots of half-naked women, which I'm sure the guys enjoyed immensely. Afterwards, Shan and I returned to his home, did some homework, started to watch "X" but were too tired to finish. We feel asleep sometime around 3:00 in the morning. All in all, a nice, relaxing day.

The next day, we woke up at 8:00 and left for the float party. We (me, Shan, Ning, Jack, Jack's g/f Jao Ming, and Sherry) all met up at a grocery store to buy all the supplies (booze, food, cups, etc.) for the trip. I got changed into a swim suit 'cause they said I would need one. Then we started the three-hour car trip to the river where we're gonna have this float party.

Shan, me, Ning and Sherry were in one car following Jack and Jao Ming in the other car. Jack was leading 'cause he's been there before, but for the first few minutes of the drive, he was driving too slow. Only five miles over the speed limit. There was no way we could've gotten there and back by 6:00 if he continued at that pace. So Shan called his cell and told him to go faster. And the race was on. We went a lot faster after that phone call. ^_^

Three hours and some random conversations later, we arrived at the river. Everyone was asked to empty out some water bottles 'cause we needed to transfer the booze into them (glass was not allowed on the river). I was given a bottle of Berry Pina Colata and told to drink it all. And I did, in about two minutes. That was the most alcohol I had in such a sort period of time, ever. We poured the rest of the drinks (the Pina Colata, a few bottles of Green Apple Smirnoff, some vodka and some Jack Daniel) into the water bottles and then set off for the river.

We had six people and three canoes. That was a mistake. We would've been better off with just two canoes. Jack went off with Jao Ming, naturally. Shan and Sherry shared a canoe, understandably. Ning and I got the last canoe, which was a big mistake. I can't paddle. Period. I'm weak and lazy, and I've only been in a canoe once before this time, and I didn't do any paddling that time. Ning can paddle better than me but she's no expert either. We got caught up in shallow water or tree branches so many times. It was embrassingly funny how sucky we were. And that was before we had anything to drink (except for the little bit from the Pina Colata).

Well, after a while and many corrections about my paddling later, we thought we had finally gotten the hang of it. Nope, wrong again. Our canoe reached a narrow strip of water with a strong current and we kinda lost control of it. The canoe went straight into the shore and flipped over. Me and Ning both went under. It's a good thing that our canoe didn't have anything in it besides us or that would've been worse. I managed to get some footing and stood up and walked away from the current and towards shallower water. Ning got carried away with the canoe downstream by the current. Since I didn't have shoes on, it was really painful for me to walk on the rocks in the river towards where everyone else was. Ning got a fish hook stuck in her thigh during her trip downstream. One of the paddles got stuck upstream but I couldn't get to it 'cause the current was too powerful. The canoe was flipped completely over and we didn't have enough strength to lift it out of the water. All in all, a very bad situation.

Jack eventually got the paddle back, after much pain on his part (he didn't have shoes either). Some nice people came over and helped up get our canoe out of the water. I put on my cheap Chinese shoes that I love, not really caring anymore about ruining them 'cause the pain of walking barefoot was too much. After everything settled down, we sat down and had a few drinks and then set off again. This time, I went with Jack and Ning went with Shan. Much better. I didn't really do any paddling 'cause Jack handled everything expertly. I actually messed up his pacing when I did paddle.

We paddled for a bit more and then stopped for more drinks. Met some people who were also here for a float party and exchanged alcoholic stuff. We gave them a half-bottle of vodka and they gave us some vodka-soaked watermelon slices. It didn't taste bad. Afterwards, we set off again, but I went with Shan this time. Let's just say that Jack was a more capable paddler than Shan. I actually had to paddle and I didn't do it well. He wasn't that great but he was definitely better than me.

Then, we reached what I call the Death Trap. It's this area of the river that's really narrow as it was, but there were a lot of huge fallen tree branches in the water, making it even narrower. Add in a strong current flowing into the dense parts of the branches, and it's basically a death trap. Shan and I got caught in it and we were in a very precarious situation. He got out of the canoe 'cause the water wasn't that deep and tried to steady the canoe, which kinda worked. Jack and Ning's canoe slammed into ours, and the combination of that and the strong current pushing against their canoe tipped them over. Poor Ning. And definitely poor Jack 'cause the current carried him and slammed him into a tree trunk. Ouch.

I somehow got back to shore with one broken shoe. Shan helped Ning cross over a lot of the branches and get to shore. Shan then tried to rescure Jack, who was trapped on the other side of the current. All our stuff were in the water and travelling downstream. Thankfully, there were a lot of people around and they all helped us out. Shan and Jack eventually got to shore and the tipped over canoe was fished out of the water. All our stuff were caught and returned, except for maybe a bottle of vodka. It was a pain but we survived.

About a minute after we all the panic settled down, another canoe came down the river, got trapped in the same place we were and tipped over. So Shan and Jack helped them out and all that stuff. The other canoe also had a lot of crap to pick up, such as beer cans and coolers. Told you, a death trap. Another canoe came after them and almost tipped but people helped them out just in time. There were so many canoes there at that point that it was real traffic jam. We eventually made it past the Death Trap and got going again. I went with Jack again. As we were paddling away, we heard three consecutive screams from the direction of the Death Trap. More canoes have met their fate. Oh, and did I mention that Sherry and Jao Ming's boat go through the Death Trap just fine and that they didn't even what happened till we told them? They haven't flipped once yet and Ning's flipped twice already. Some people just have the best luck. Or skill.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Jack and I paddled, but mostly Jack, in an easy pace. We talked about stuff like college and IMSA. We saw some people jumped into the water from high ledges. Around 5:25, we got back to where we started. We made an eight-mile trip. We were all exhausted, some of us sun-burned, but it was an interesting trip. Shan and I were so very, very late for dinner but it couldn't have been helped. Since we were in the mountains, none of us had service from our cells. After driving for about 20 mins, I got service on my phone. Only three bars but considering that everyone else had jack squat, I'd say it's pretty impressive. Go AT&T wireless/Cingular! Shan called his parents and said we couldn't make it to dinner. I slept most of the way back in the car, in an uncomfortable position but what could I do? Ning was sitting behind me so I couldn't lower the seat too much. Grrr you, Ning. ^_~

We got back to St. Louis, dropped off Sherry back at her car and headed back to Shan's house for dinner. We ate, showered and relaxed. Shan, Ning and I finished watching "X" and then Sherry and Jack came over to play poker. I did pretty well until I became so tired and lost interest. It ended with Ning winning through laziness and lack of interest on Shan's part. Sherry and Jack left earlier in the game 'cause it was getting late. Afterwards, Shan, Ning and I watched "Love Actually" until we couldn't keep our eyes opened anymore. Ning and I shared a bed and we all went to sleep. I left around 9:00 in the morning while Shan and Ning were still in bed (actually, Ning got up and then went back to bed). It was a fun weekend. Exhausting, but fun.

Oh, and I just added Phil 102 to my schedule so now I'm at 17 credit hours instead of 14. I feel more accomplished now but also more screwed. Go figure.