SWEET RIOT!!!

HEY YOU GUYYYYYYYSSSS....

Had an AWESOME time talking to SARAH ENDLINE today. Former MCP US, LCP Michigan, and all-around @er. Very, very "sweet" time hanging out with her and her mom downtown at Zingerman's Deli where they were giving tastes of their wares (which are sold inside and online-WINK WINK, NUDGE NUDGE) =)

Anyway, if you've never heard of her company SWEET RIOT, check it out at www.sweetriot.com and learn all about the cacao bean (Kuh-Cow!)

She's a great inspiration for anyone looking to work for AIESEC abroad or at home, start their own business, form a mission-based company, and pretty much everything else, so check out her website.

PS--I TOTALLY got the inside peak on the new art designs for the upcoming tins! I am SOOO in with the in-crowd... =)

The Beginning of the End

Hmmm...

Who remembered that yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day???? Sadly enough, not me. I would imagine that most people didn't know it was yesterday. What's all this talk to Chernobyl when we should be honoring the day?

Whoa, flashback to Newsies and "Sieze the Day". Great movie, even better musical. Although that's not to speak down to Christian Bale's talents. Ha.

ANYWAY. I am definitely considering the possibility of going to IC this summer. I have heard it is difficult to go if not an LCP, but difficulties be damned!! I might actually be able to accrue the money by then, and surprisingly enough, within my crazily hectic schedule, it falls in the only time span when I could have time off. So we are looking into it.

I get a new roommate tonight. On the short end of the stick, my roommate has sublet her half of the room for the summer. I hope it doesn't end up like the Dell commercial.

A bit (tons) jealous of people going abroad, etc. this summer, but I suppose one can't travel all the time. PS to all my Chinese speaking friends (Kirk, Sheila, Lier, Ming, my new roommate, etc) you WILL be called upon when this Intensive Chinese class is kicking my ass this summer. One year of Chinese in 2 months. What was I thinking?

Oh that's right...I was thinking I need a major...

Distraction

Studying half-heartedly for the three exams tomorrow.

Disturbed by Maoist revolts in Nepal, likewise the bombings in Egypt.

Curious that though I've never been to these places, stories and pictures from fellow AIESECers have made them second homes. Instant recognition upon reading cities/sites bombed. Terrifying to wait to hear that all AIESECers are accounted for. Many are not as lucky.

However, I am pleased the Congo is getting more coverage in the news as of late. It is a region that hits close to home and I take any opportunity to read about it. Relatively good link to a news video on the BBC today, though w/ poor pixel quality.

Goodbye dinner for the seniors tomorrow, I must try to drag myself to it after these exams. Possibly a CP3 call on Thursday and LTM over the weekend. Losing one to trainee to Indiana, which is good for them. He's a very cool guy. Three Mexican trainees coming in the 12th. SWEET.

Did I mention I've had to call the police to my work two times in the last two weeks? I tell ya, campus security is my new best friend. All the crazies come out when it's warm. I tell you I'm flypaper for FREAKS...

Living Like a Bum...

Last night =

1) Goodbye Party at my house for Joanna, Beth and Shannon, who got matched to TNs in Istanbul Turkey. There was @ music, Turkish food, and Kip's shady friends. As everyone knows, it's not a party until there's some creepy guys whispering to each other off in a corner and casing the joint like a Vin Diesel movie.

2) After said Goodbye Party, the party became mobile and we moved to Packard with a 2-story beer bong. We lasted about 20 minutes. Then we were kicked out because apparently we were the drunkest ones at the party. Sounds like a personal problem, I tell the hostess, in a polite invitation for her to catch up...

3) Move on to Joanna's house for Limon Schnapps that tastes like Mr. Clean. We last about 20 minutes again before Emily is puking all over the toilet (not IN it, mind you, we're talking a good 3-foot splatter radius), and Greg and I are outside getting in the Cleanliness War of the Century. Maybe it was the Mr. Clean-flavored shots. Maybe it was a baptismal rite of passage before we left for the summer. All I know is I doused him with Febreeze in an attempt to counter-attack his spray of Soap Scum Scrubby Bubbles, to which he check-mated a mop and I raised him a vacuum. Final Score? Greg: -10 for unsportsmanlike conduct with a swiffer duster; April: -5 for a fake-out Febreeze shot to the face; The House: +100 for all-around improved condition.

4) After bidding a fond adieu to Joanna's towels (sacrificed to Emily's stomach contents), we make our way to Greg's. (Emily in tow, because obviously she can only be better after puking that much). Greg's is reached, only to our dismay does the loser go upstairs to write his term paper. I am surprisingly complacent with this party-pooping pathetic-ness, and punish him only by calling his phone about 9 times and leaving various "Cartman" messages after every beep. "God Damn it you guys!" "No, Kitty!" "Screw you guys, I'm going home" "I said you can suck my balls, Mr. Garrison!", etc. and of course, "Greg, seriously. This is weak. Seriously weak".

5) A long walk home about 4:00 ensues, us with a little less dignity and Greg's house with a little less paint after Emily christened the side twice.

6) Moving on to today, and living like a bum. Phone calls and text messages to Joanna prove ineffective so, not one to be defeated, I set out in an obstinate trek to her house. Arriving to the always-unlocked door, I let myself in to return her iPod and Farewell sign she left at my house. Sitting on her couch, I leave her a voicemail which informs her of my intention to leave said couch within the next 10 minutes if I do not hear back a battle plan to meet up. .... Slide frame sequence to an hour later, when I awake on her couch. A BUM. I walked into an empty house, sat on the couch, and fell asleep. THIS IS A NEW LOW. I booked it out of there like Ashley Simpson on SNL.

7) Realize that this is not a first for me, really, and that in my own defense this could be seen as an exercise to hone my bum-like survival skills. Truly nomad style, if you will.

8) Story ends happily because I choose to alter my perceptions to feel better about myself.

THE END =)

Arrgh. Sick in Warm Weather!

I don't know how I manage to get sick when its 78 degrees out, but I do.

*sigh*!! Senior Farewell tonight. Bittersweet memories! The coming of senior farewell reminds me of senior farewells passed, and thinking about how we saluted those oldie AIESEC members on to greater heights, I get a little emotional.

Some of the best AIESECers to ever impact, impassion and motivate an LC. Some of the best project managers, VPs, LCPs, and NFTs you've ever seen. People that partied hard even while they worked hard, always pushing toward their individual goals. Maybe those goals saw fruition in foreign AIESEC chapters. Maybe they guided them to graduate schools and law degrees. Maybe they even pushed them into a land of questions and the unknown, only to feel that rush of clarification and *BANG* out into the world like a shot they would go.

Solid AIESECers. Great Friends. Mentors, most of them, and teachers all. It's a good time of year, Senior Farewell. The end of an era. As this one rolls around, I realize that most of the old guard will have graduated. References to 507 Elm will get puzzled stares. Throwbacks to "when Rickesh was king" or "in Carly's regime" will only be stories. The people that saw those events happen and passed them on will be gone. But not forever. The world is far too small for AIESECers not to conquer it, and we'll see each other again. Maybe in Egypt or Spain. Maybe in Russia or Cancun. But we'll be there, and we'll bring along the memories.

DEDICATED to the 'Old Guard'.....AMBER, SHIRLEY, SARAH BOSTWICK, COLLEEN, ASIER, RITA, KIM, GRACE, ARNAUB, LI'ER, MING, and many others that have gone before.

Rating Professors....

Have you ever been to www.ratemyprofessors.com? I'm ashamed to say I use this resource religiously--no reason taking a class w/ a sucky professor, right? Anyway, below are the most ridiculous reviews for some UofM profs...people can be quite vehement in their descriptions...

20 You can't cheat in her class because no one knows the answers.
19 His class was like milk, it was good for 2 weeks.
18 Houston, we have a problem. Space cadet of a teacher, isn't quite attached to earth.
17 I would have been better off using the tuition money to heat my apartment last winter.
16 Three of my friends got A's in his class and my friends are dumb.
15 Emotional scarring may fade away, but that big fat F on your transcript won't.
14 Evil computer science teaching robot who crushes humans for pleasure.
13 Miserable professor - I wish I could sum him up without foul language.
12 Instant amnesia walking into this class. I swear he breathes sleeping gas.
11 BORING! But I learned there are 137 tiles on the ceiling.
10 Not only is the book a better teacher, it also has a better personality.
9 Teaches well, invites questions and then insults you for 20 minutes.
8 This teacher was a firecracker in a pond of slithery tadpoles.
7 I learned how to hate a language I already know.
6 Very good course, because I only went to one class.
5 He will destroy you like an academic ninja.
4 Bring a pillow.
3 Your pillow will need a pillow.
2 If I was tested on her family, I would have gotten an A.
1 She hates you already.

It disturbs me that Pinar is taking a semester off. Her reason is that she doesn't know what she's working towards, so she can't make herself motivated to do anything. She's taking some time off to figure things out. This frightens me. Not necessarily for Pinar--I know things will work out. But I'm worried that this is a symbolic red flag. Is there some truth to this? I rarely go to class and scrape by on what I can force myself to do. But I thought that was college. You're never going to be really motivated to go to class or do homework, right? Or should you be? The people that have all their shit figured out and lined up really impress me. On the one hand, I think it's a little amusing because I don't think you can truly plan far ahead for anything. But at the same time I admire that ambition. I was thinking about it last night, because believe it or not, I used to be that person. I used to get up at 6 just to get things done and had my life planned out to 25. So I was asking myself, What's Changed?

It may be melodramatic, but the difference is I don't believe I can "do anything I set my mind to" anymore. Maybe it's a big ten college, maybe it's just the real world, but at some point you realize that even if you really love something or enjoy doing it, there will always be people better than you. Everything's turned into a competition. When I read these career books at the resource center I have yet to find one job, ONE job, where it doesn't say, "This is a hard field to break into".

I know some people thrive on competition, etc. But I thrive on recognition. And this whole delayed-gratification concept of college really doesn't work for me. Professors don't know my name. It doesn't matter if I go to class. And I sure as hell don't know what job I'm working toward, so that's no impetus. Of course, you can't spend the rest of your life being apathetic. And the simple solution seems to be "Make yourself care", or "JFDI", as one friend recently told me.

But I think this concept of us versus ourselves is an interesting one. Is it really mind over matter-- if I found the inspiration is anything possible? Probably not.

Madison Cometh, and other such tales...

It actually all started before they even got there. But the winds of change were blowing. So let me take you back to Thursday night, where the weekend really began....

Thursday night, 9:30pm
Happy Hour. A solid but pathetically small group of 7 people. Clappy is the only one drinking, and he does so with gusto. An entire pitcher within the hour. Leaving the famed establishment of Charlie's, and vowing to return to write my response paper due the next day, I'm cut off nearly mid-sentence by Clappy's ever-so-beautiful words, "We drinking? I'm buying." Paper to the wind, I joyously offer up my house, the nexus of all alcoholic activity....

Thursday, 11:30 onward
Ryan and Aman troop out in a manly way to get the liquor, while the women head back to my place to keep house (read: find cards for circle of death, and make room in the fridge for Mohawk). Drinking and said game ensues.

Thursday, midnight-ish
We decide Greg should come over, but he is relentless in his intent to "study". So we resort to other tactics. Desperate times, desperate measures. My roommate joins the crowd, drinking heavily, and we give her the phone to call Greg. A wild facade ensues. Between breathy drunken tones and poorly muffled giggles, she rattles off every line we feed her: "Greg, I'm from....RoKS! Yes, I'm....from Miami!!....and, my name is....Meredith!" Despite its poor execution, it worked. Greg, in all his hospitable ways, was manipulated to leave the books and visit an out-of-town AIESECer. Game on. My roommate getting steadily drunker, we convince her to meet Greg at the door with two shots, one at the bottom of the stairs and one at the top. This is to soften the blow of walking 20 minutes for our sorry asses, no Meredith in sight. Surprisingly, he takes them both, and by the time he offer him a weighty cup of Mohawk and Coke, he's not so concerned about the books abandoned at his house. All of us troop upstairs.

Thursday, getting on toward 3:00 am.
By this time we are pleasantly drunk. Except Aman, who in his sober staidness always serves to remind our drunk asses of just what we did the night before. Fair enough. I convince everyone it's time to leave when my roommate ends up in the bathtub sleeping in her own vomit. This is not before Ryan and said roommate troop to Campus Corner and buy the biggest god damn bottle of Grey Goose I've ever seen. 2.5 Liters. $80.00. Sweet Jesus...do you smell Madison's approach on the wind?

Friday night, 10:00
Emily and I forego buying hookah at Oasis once Arnaub calls and relates the amount that will be at Greg's house. We head out to smoke and wait for Madison. Sad, sad optimist, I was.

Friday, 12:00
Although I contributed the rest of the Mohawk, we found ourselves with no chasers. This of course led to a drink consisting of 2 shots of rum filled to the brim with Franzia. Boxed wine is as good a chaser as any. I killed one of those and was 3/4 through another when it hit like a tsunami. I was pleasantly drunk, sitting cross-legged on Greg's bed with Lynn, practicing Zen Buddhism, when suddenly I remember nothing but puking in the hallway and getting carried down the stairs. Apparently, mid-sentence with Lynn, I stopped talking, fell off the bed, proceeded to roll into a corner, and stay there. Prompted by Arnaub's cries of "Get her up! Get her up!" My other roommate (bathtub girl is still recovering at home) and Jeff, Greg's roommate, drag me out to the hall. After all, we can't let anything unpleasant wreck the party. Jeff tries to keep me from passing out, which I'm doing regularly, apparently. "April, tell me about your dress for Casino Night?" At this point I can't think of any words, and after a 5-minute struggle I form something that resembles the statement, "Hot". Jeff and my roommate carry me out to a car, then carry me up the stairs to my house. Needless to say, I missed Madison's arrival that night. I pretty much missed all of that night.

Saturday morning, 11 am
I wake up refreshed, unknowing, and fully prepared to drink again. Once I do remember the previous night, I chalk it up to gathering data. One has to prepare before Madison comes to town--know your limit, know your drink time intervals, everything. Hypothesis proven, to say the least. Getting ready for MiLDS, I get a call from Nob. Baisically, Madison's been drinking 40s since 10, and they need a place to watch movies. Sure. Why not. So, as I leave, Madison moves in. They greet me at the door with a dolly full of Ice. We're talking 28 forties. I don't know why the dolly surprised me. After emptying the freezers ("Your food's gonna have to go") and filling it with forties, they proceed to move the largest TV of the house into the living room. Sadly, I leave them and even renounce hash bash in order to go to MiLDS. Yet, MiLDS was definitely solid. And believe me, the forties would wait.

Saturday, 5 ish
A call to my roommate, "Hey, is Madison wrecking the house?"
"Um...I haven't seen them in a few hours. Last I knew they were gonna smoke hookah".
Wonderful

Saturday, 6:00-10:00
I return home, to find Madison, Nob, Emily and Meyers sitting in the dark, watching Old School, smoking hookah. Give us about 2 more hours, and nearly every person in that room is playing forty hands, every man is without pants. The girls serve to pass the hookah hose around and, occasionally, help a man on or off with his pants. These four hours include activities but were not limited to: Williams talking to my pissed off roommate without his pants on, convincing her why she should shower somewhere else; (Bruni interjects, "Yeah Williams, go *talk* to her" and holds up his 40hands. I assume he means get her wasted. Kaylee supplies, "Those are quote fingers with 40hands".) Emily and I returning the dolly before 10 pm like Williams told us. The store manager tells us is was supposed to be 'in ten minutes'. Oops. I think me wearing Bruni's belt around my neck distracted him enough to let us get away with it. Nob, Williams and Bruni managed to pee mid-game of 40 hands, although helping each other was involved (??). Various calls to old-school @ers, and a small reunion is held in the matter of 20 minutes.

Saturday, 10 onward.
Casino Night craziness. Bitches Bitches and champagne on the front porch for Nob's birthday. Emily makes out with Joanna, Joanna molests every girl she runs into, my roommate hooks up with the bartender (hey, you gotta pay the frat somehow), and I try to convince the DJ to search for something called, "Tunak Tunak". Reunion with Shirley, Amber and Colleen, drunken dancing and the music off at 2:00, much to our dismay. Panchero's and long walks to my house ensued, only to be quickly re-routed to Joanna's (not really?) and Sandhya's.

Sunday, 10 am
Next morning, Madison is still without keys, two of my roommates are without shoes (ppl wore them to go party hopping), the frat takes 3 hours to clean up, and I wear my dress until about 3 that afternoon. Wow. Walk of Shame? No folks---Stride of Pride. Nob and Arthur stay in town to recover. Madison makes a brave start home after securing a lock smith.

Umm....pretty solid weekend. P.S.--that paper from Thursday night? Still hasn't happened. Stand up for the Champions...