Rotten bananas

The expression that time flies is so clichéd that I'm tempted to avoid it. However, as my friends know, I'm lazy, I plagiarise and thus am uncreative. Well, anyway, the point of all that ranting is just a note that my exchange is due to end in slightly over a month, which, on hindsight, appears to be a much shorter period of time than one would actually realise. That's right, folks, yours truly has been here for almost 3 months. Wow.

Like most weekends in Charlottesville, this weekend went by rather eventful. For example, I've learned a number of very important things.

I've learned that:

1. My neighbours are absolutely crazy. But lots of fun. They organised a trip to the Tea Bazaar, a hippie joint at what is known as Downtown (unsurprisingly, the hippie home of Charlottesville). This is an event for everyone to go down, smoke sheeshas/shishas/hookas (however the hell you spell it) and just make merry.

Photos to come.

2. ABCs (Asian-Born Chinese) make just about the worst frat boys ever. And hold the worst parties. Ever.

The gist of this was a party that we had been invited to. Unlike normal frat parties, getting invited to an Asian party is horrible, because being on the invite list means you're a fellow Asian and thus ripe for plucking, the stingy yellow bastards. That's right, amigos, no free entry and no free flow of booze. That's just terrible, really.

So, besides going to a very costly event, they decided to forget the aircon. Having had the ability to just about gather 90% of all the yellows in UVa (quite a feat - I mean, even I got suckered into it), they packed us all like sardines into a club with no airconditioning.

Did I also mention that we had a bunch of people who decided that since they wanted to pretend to be black, they would take over the stage and do da thing. Except he couldn't decide between being cool deejay or fierce bouncer. So here's some random organizer chap, who just kills the music (and folks who know their music know that this is the worst thing you could do), goes over the mike and starts saying, "Okay, guys, those of you dancing, move in front. Those who wanna get drinks, go behind to the bar. Oh, by the way, make some noise! Yaaaaaaaaah!" (I seriously am not kidding).

To top the night, the whole event was busted by the cops for underaged drinking. Glad that I left way before that. I think I've given up on "partying" in dear ol' UVa.

3. The best thing to do when you've had something to drink is to find a bunch of other people who listened to the same music 10 years ago and form your very own choir on the spot. Which, it turns out, is much better than going to a party organised by, well, the worst organizers ever. I mean, honestly, I can actually lay claim to having done a better job - those of you who've been to Bedroom*jocks/Indulge! events would know.

4. America has a lot to offer in terms of shopping. In all honesty, I think there's really no point buying things until they're on sale, because they go for ridiculous prices. I've gotten myself a cap from Old Navy at about US$2. A Banana republic shirt, on the other hand, will set you back 78 smackeroos before discount. I'm just waiting...

5. My neighbours are absolutely mad. I've been instructed to blog that we just spent the last hour watching people take personality quizzes in a state of drunkenness on Saturday night. So there, if any of you ever find this blog, congrats, you'll know that I've actually blogged about the event.

Finally, a transcript of a recent conversation where I'm trying to convince my neighbour to become an "evil capitalist", as Carl and just about every other debater would put it.

Me: "Y'know, you really should consider that evil capitalist thing."
Neighbour (henceforth known as J): "See, the problem with that is that I'd like to keep this thing known as a set of morals."
Me: "You don't need that. You're Republican."

I dunno why, I get such a kick out of political jokes. And no, I don't just mean the ones who get elected.