amber jack is not a friendly fellow

It's been a bit since I last updated...not a whole lot has been going on, but there have been a few exceptions. The first noteworthy thing I can remember after the London trip was beer pong night in the UK! It was pretty hilarious. When we first starting setting up on the ghetto but functioning table we built (as seen above), everyone started organizing onto one side of the table or the other, going "I'm on this team!" This tested my faith of whether this was going to be possible, thinking perhaps there is some kind of cultural barrier here that can not be broken. But alas, when I was given the opportunity to explain the rules I made it clear that you have one team-mate, not 15. We started off simple, the only rule being a bounce is 2 cups. Once everyone seemed to wrap themselves around the basic concept of this, we introduced a few more rules, such as live table, behind the backs, strags, re-racking, etc. We haven't quite made it to NBA jams yet, but things went relatively well. They would be murdered for how far over the table they shoot as well as the popular under-hand throw among some other inconsistencies, but I'll just accept those as a British twist on the game. I actually played surprisingly bad on this night, but my time would come. We also only had one ball, which was pretty annoying. After a lot of pong was played and everyone seemed to really enjoy it, we went off to Club Life. Here would be the begining of the end of that night. I was having a great time drunkly dancing, but by the time we left I was... extremely drunk. I don't really remember exactly how I managed to get on a bus and get back to my bed, but it did someone happen. I've been enlightened to certain details, including that I fell on the bus and also passed out on it. All in all, a good night, as is evident from this picture of me the next morning.

After that there was nothing really exciting going on, I just sat around and did nothing, smoked lot, watched a lot of this awesome British comedy called the Peep Show, which I recommend all readers check out (it's all on youtube!). I've been attending around 50% of my classes and doing most of the readings, so that's a pretty large upgrade from last semester. I'm really screwed for this coming week though. I have my first essay, which is 1000 words. I really have no idea how long any of my papers are, since I'm used to the guidelines being set by pages and not word count. It doesn't sound that long. Then I have this mock European Union thing to do where I have to represent Ireland for something. The EU is the most confusing governmental system I have ever studied and it makes no sense to me. So I basically don't have the slightest idea what I'm going to do, sorry Ireland.

The beginning of this week was sooooooo boring. I did absolutely nothing and it was cold and rainy, which made it pretty depressing. Hearing about fun weekends back at Clark, skyping with certain people, and the upcoming Dan Deacon show gave me another homesick period, which also somewhat brought to forefront my year long existential crisis I may be having. Just as things weren't looking too optimistic, I was able to have a great last few days. Thursday was one of the funnest days I have had since I've been here. To begin the night we played this game that every girl in the flat apparently despises. It's called, "Throwing cards into a hat." Pretty self-explanatory. It was made up by one of my flatmates, and you basically sip your drink every time you throw a card that misses the hat. Later, we got some beer pong going again and this time I was actually on my game. During one epic moment, my team mate made the last cup with his behind the back shot. I got extremely drunk and had a blast drinking and smoking with a bunch of people. My smoky room also set off the fire alarm, but luckily it went off after a few minutes of waving a hat at it.



The next night was also tons of fun. I spent the night drinking and playing card games at the flat next to mine with the Park Village crew (my set of flats..it's like Bullock Hall for England). We played a game they call Kings Cup, which is basically the exact same thing as Kings, except for this one difference. There is a cup in the middle of the cards. Every time someone pulls a King, they need to add a good amount of their drink into the cup. When the last king gets pulled, that person needs to down the contents of that cup. I actually think this is a pretty awesome rule, although it is strange how not disgusted people can be drinking a glass mixed with beer, cider, wine, vodka, etc. This night did not end as well for me. You may remember that 3 liter of 7.5% alcoholic cider known as Amber Jack I posted a pic of a while ago. Well I drank just about the entire bottle, as well as a couple pints at the campus bar during the night. We were just hanging around talking and I took a few hits of a spliff. This caused the sensation we all know as "the spins." Everything is a fog at this point, but I'm pretty sure within a few moments of hitting the spliff I was on the bathroom floor throwing up. At some point I made it back downstairs and into bed. I woke up at 4 with my worst english hangover and have had a pounding headache and violent stomach basically all day. I discovered that I left a hot pocket and left over pasta in the microwave overnight. I decided to take it easy tonight and ended up picking up some dank headies and smoking, which is occurring at present. So that's what I've been up to. I really needed these last few days to be good and thankfully they were. I sincerely miss everyone so much back home!

Stay Paid. Matt.