Back From Athens

I believe last week I left here writing about a possible snow day… well indeed Winthrop did have a snow day, extending our three day weekend into a four day weekend. After I wrote my post last week my roommate and I couldn’t fall asleep, a side effect to the anticipation of waiting for snow. After it had snowed for a good hour and a half, at around two o’clock, people were going crazy outside of our dorm. We heard some bangs on our window and it was another soccer player who was throwing snow balls at us. Well that got Matt and I up and out to join everyone outside in a two hour snow ball fight.. it was intense.

Anyways.. the rest of my week was short, considering that it only lasted for three days. On Friday night, some guys and I had planned to go out to Charlotte and see the Charlotte Bobcats in an NBA showdown against the Phoenix Suns and then possibly go to a little concert afterwards. However, the plans changed as Scandals (the bar across the street from campus) was having a huge party on Friday night where everyone could get in for free, or something along the lines of that, I didn’t really pay attention. Well this ruined my plans for going out to Charlotte, but Matt was still going to go with this girl. I didn’t want to go out to Scandals because I would have had a horrible time. I could have just stayed in, done some work, eaten some junk food, but then I kind of “half-thought”, I could totally go to UGA and see Sheida. After a couple of texts messages this half-thought transformed into a three-quarters thought, then a seven-eighths thought, then escalated to a fifteen-sixteenths thought then leaped to a twenty-nine-thirtieths thought… you get the picture right?

I had been napping when everyone changed their minds about going to Charlotte and woke up around 7:15 when I got a hold of the change of plans. Sheida wasn’t really thrilled about my late notice endeavor at first, but after my begging she gradually changed her mind. That previous sentence was an example of a little thing called sarcasm, incase you didn’t hint it. I hit the road at around 7:45 and arrived in Athens around 11. It was a great weekend but could have been way better if I could have stayed longer! The good thing about the spring semester is that I have all my weekends free from soccer except for March, so I can do whatever I like on Saturdays and Sundays.

Pretty cool coincidence on Saturday night: the men’s basketball team was playing against Mississippi State at home! Sheida and I went to the game, but they lost.. it was an exciting game at the end though, everyone thought UGA was going to comeback and take the lead.. unfortunately they just couldn’t catch up to the other Bulldogs.

I can’t believe it’s eleven o’clock and I’m about to pass out as I’m writing! Usually I’m up until one or two every night here at Winthrop. This is a good thing though, maybe I’ll actually get eight hours of sleep for once on a weekday. I’ve got another quick ending week this week as I’m leaving for the CASE Apple Conference at the University of Virginia on Friday morning as one representative of the Winthrop Men’s soccer team. Matt was the other rep chosen. I’m so excited to be able to go! Every year the CASE Apple Conference is held, one in San DIego and one in Charlottesville, VA at the Univ of Virginia. 40 schools on the east coast attend the UVA held conference and six people (four athletes and two team leaders) attend from each school. The conference consists of many speakers and team meetings as well as interaction and collaboration between members of the different schools.

“The APPLE conferences, developed by the Center for Alcohol and Substance Education (CASE) at the University of Virginia, are the leading national training symposiums dedicated to substance abuse prevention and health promotion for student athletes and athletics department administrators.  The goal of the APPLE conference is to assist schools in promoting student athlete health and wellness by empowering teams of student athletes and administrators to create an institution-specific action plan.”

I feel very honored to be one of the athletes chosen to represent Winthrop at the conference. Hopefully I’ll learn a lot from all that I am exposed to. Our van is leaving Winthrop around 11 on Friday morning. It’s going to be awesome! I’m sure Matt and I will have a blast.

Also, I hope you don’t mind the music playing on the blog right now. (If you can’t hear it, TURN YOUR SPEAKERS ON!) My friends from MAE, well I like to consider them my friends since I’ve seen them play the past two times they’ve visited Atlanta, are taking a pretty unique and cool route with their band for the year of 2009. I thought I would try to spread the word that they are trying to spread themselves by posting their little widget on the side of my blog. You can read about their idea on MAE’s website. Check out Jacob’s blog. I’ve also added it to my Good Reads list. I’ve read his stuff for a while, it’s pretty cool. He’s smart, really.

Here are some pics from this weekend..

You like that fried rice, don’t you?  Sheida took me to this great fast-food(ish) Japanese restaurant called Inoko. If you’re ever passing through Athens and see a sign that says Inoko, I suggest you stop there for a quick bite. Their hibachi is mouth watering. We didn’t steal any of the plates while we were there though.. just in case you were wondering.. What is he talking about?