The Conservative 12's

Kyle here to break the metaphorical ice with a polar bear blog post.  Things have been going great in Champaigne, the weather is starting to warm up and the kids are starting to play outside again.  Personally, I’ve spent an exceptional amount of time playing 007 GoldenEye on N64…my mother never let me play as a kid due to the excessive violence, so I’m trying to make up for the gaping hole in my childhood.  It’s a good a thing I wasn’t allow to play as a kid though, I’d probably would have turned violent and ended up doing time in a juvenile prison (FORESHADOWING)….now you have to keep reading.

About a week ago, our good friend Amir kindly informed us that a good amount of the SigEp 13’s think us remaining 12’s are too conservative, hence the name “Conservative 12’s” and incredibly creative title that pulled you into this post’s body copy.  Honestly, I always thought we were pushing the limits while watching High School Musical and Love Actually in room 24, but I guess everything is subjective.  It’s not easy being edgy when you don’t fully understand to local culture.  Regardless, Monday night we had an exchange with the ladies of KKG, and everyone found out just how conservative we can be.  13’s, stop writing on CollegeACB and pay attention.

After a little pregaming at the house, we were ready to go.  All of room 25 was in attendance with Me, Clay, and Cuzman.  Kirby represented 24, Saki and Goldblatt from 22, and all of 26 (Kevin ‘No Nights Off’ Lyznicki, Tim “Fat Sandwich” Schultz, Scott “The Voice” Rasley).  The theme was something along the lines of “Country Club,” so most of us dressed in our best golfing attire.  Clay and Kirby stuck it to the theme by dressing as Bill Murray from Caddyshack and a lifeguard respectively.  Take that theme.  Notice the motif of badassness developing.

The atmosphere at the High Dive was great.  To my disappointment, there was no diving board or pool like I had imagined.  Back home, all the local bars are required to have such materials…chalk it up to cultural difference.  I was wearing a light yellow golf polo, and matched perfectly with Henry and at least 6 of the girls.  You better believe I played that card all night. 

I was sitting in a booth with my roommates, chatting up a few girls that we had just met.  Desperate for topics, we joked around about how all our names started with the same sound (Colin Cuzman, Clay Carns, Kyle…..Goethals L).  Shortly after sitting down, we received word that Kirby had been kicked out of High Dive.  As part of his lifeguard costume he had a whistle that he was frequently blowing, and the staff at High Dive wasn’t happy about it.  Kirby was given a warning, but he just loved blowing too much.  He tried to trade his whistle for the chance to stay in the bar, but the bouncers obviously weren’t interested in the barter.  We had been there no longer than 30mins, and Kirby was kicking the curb of downtown Champaigne in a swimsuit and t-shirt.  And a whistle.

To fast forward through the rest of Kirby’s night, he was lucky to get a ride home with Nick Fuson.  When he got home, he continued to drink alone in his room, much like an alcoholic would do.  This resulted in Kirby blacking out, forgetting Mia Carter’s name, and things of that nature.  To say the least, it was a very conservative night for Kirby.

So we’re back at the High Dive.  We were having a great time, and Tamasauskas was pouring an inappropriately high amount of alcohol into our drinks as the bartender.  I’m not 21, so that made it not only inappropriate, but illegal.  Finally, we decided it was time to hit up the dance floor.  If you’ve ever been to High Dive, you know that it is basically split into two sides, allowing two exchanges to be going on at once.  If you’ve never been there, you have no idea what I’m talking about.  Our exchange was on the left side, and Delta Chi + SDT were on the side with the dance floor.  Initially, there were some problems with the D Chi’s allowing us on their side to dance, but eventually they were kind enough to allow us to bust moves with them….but it was a trap.  

Before I go into details about what happened on the dance floor, refer below to the guide for proper SigEp insulting techniques

The Fraternity Guide to Insulting SigEps

1. Be Creative – Try to use material I haven’t heard before.  Yes, I’m aware we don’t have traditional pledgeship and therefore we are logically a sorority and logically have vaginas and logically like kissing dudes.  If you want to insult me, do your consumer research and present a creative argument that causes me to question my life decisions.  Something along the lines of “SigEps have a terrible taste for the fashion trends of the day and breaths that smell of old goat cheese” would probably make me start crying.

2. Reference Quantifiable Data – Use statistics, awards, and commendations to back up your bold claim of being in a superior fraternity.  Examples would include referencing your 2^nd highest GPA on campus, having most active members on campus, numberous IM titles, most philanthropy hours of RSOs on campus, details about your exceptional social calendar, and leadership positions outside of the fraternity.  But just don’t use those specific examples, cause they’re already taken.  By SigEp. Not sorry.

3. Convince Me You’re Cool – Just like you would in a interview, you need to first convince me you’re cool before you can insult me.  If Justin Timberlake were to insult me, I would immediately admit defeat and head over to the corner to cry….because JT is cool.  I hope I never experience this.  If you’re a poopy-looking underclassmen wearing a polo with a popped collar, you’d better have one hell of a personality if you want me to feel sad. 

Ok, sorry for the delay in the story, I just wanted to throw that guide in for the sake of organizations comprised of exclusively male membership.  Print it out and carry it around in your wallet if you think that would prove helpful.

As mentioned above, the urge to dance had come upon us and we had to give in.  I headed over to the dance floor with a few people to shake ma booty, and was only dancing for about 5 mins before the DJ announced that the first SigEp bus had arrived to take people home.  This didn’t really concern me, seeing as I am old enough to take the last bus should I chose to do so.  However, immediately following this argument, a D Chi on the dance floor starting to make pledgeship jokes with the obvious intention of people hearing him.  It was dumb and definitely didn’t follow the guidelines posted above, some comment that linked not having traditional pledgeship to getting on an early bus.  The logic still escapes me.  Anyway I recognized I had a slight size and maturity advantage, and confronted the kid.  A few words were exchanged, he shoved me, but people pushed us any from each other very quickly.  I cooled down and starting talking to the girl that had gotten between us.  I told her she was right pushing us away from each other, and didn’t want trouble.  I told her I wouldn’t get into a fight.  In retrospect, I lied.

Well, as it turned out, the D Chi was looking for trouble.  While talking to the girl about how fighting was bad for our image and not nice, the D Chi circled around the dance floor towards me.  I saw him right as he was giving me a blatant shoulder nudge in passing.  At this point in the story, I would to mention I’ve never been in a fight before or hit anyone.  I would also like to mention there is a first time for everything.  Finally fed up with this dude’s antics, I wheeled around and delivered a left handed blow to the face (I’m left handed).  He staggered backwards, and Thometz was about to attack him at well when this huge bouncer grabbed the kid.  The DChi tried to fight the bouncer, and if you’ve ever seen a bouncer before, you’d know that’s a terrible idea.  The bouncer slammed the kid to the ground, and ultimately escorted him from the premises.  I continued to dance and mingle with friends and family.

For me, the rest of the night was pretty great.  I hung out with Kappas wearing the same color shirt as me, danced my pants off with Miles Medina at Red Lion, and made the healthy late-night choice of Fat Sandwich.  Upon my return to the house, I was filled in on the rest of the night’s details.  The DChis were somewhat displeased at the occurrences of the exchange, so one member did the logical thing and literally threw a brick through a window at the Sig Ep house.  Luckily, the brick broke the window to the right of the door, which only leads to a storage closet…I mean shit, I’ll throw a brick through that window.  Anyways, at the sound of the shattering glass, Robbie, Saki, and Goldblatt took off after the kid, and captured him in the six pack.  Police came, and the kid spent the night at jail. Naked.  Ok I’m kidding about the birthday suit, don’t be ridiculous.  But I’ve never been to jail so I don’t know.

Oh when I went back to my room the door was locked, and there was a girl inside.  Cuzman was probably playing 007 on multiplayer or something…

That was a long story….well sorry for entertaining you for an extended period of time.  So a quick recap of 12’s activities from the night: Kirby got tossed from a bar, I punched a kid, Robbie/Saki/Goldfrat jailed a dude, and Cuzman locked his door. 

Just another mellow night for the Conservative 12’s.

Kyle

Clearance Sale

Smiles here. It’s been awhile since my last post, but assuming you read mills’ post you know how great of a night I had last weekend. The concert was great and being on stage was awesome. I’m practically a rock star now. I’m friends with a lead singer of a band, I jam out on stage and direct the crowd in chants, and I sing semi charmed lift at Geo’s with Draft week. If that doesn’t qualify me for rock star status I don’t know what does.

This last week has been tough school wise. There are tons of tests, quizzes, it was 0 degrees and everyone is sick. This does not equate to having crazy fun nights out but crazy fun nights in studying and sleeping. For example on Monday I watched “Shawshank Redemption” start to finish on tv then went to bed. What a great night right??

This Wednesday however we had an exchange at it was awesome. Some would call it a clearance sale, some would call it an all you can eat buffet, I would just say the girls wanted it. Parker convinced Lanter to go to the exchange for a few hours before he started studying. So anter and Nate went but weren’t going to drink a lot, and then they were going to come home and study. This plan changed very quickly once they arrived at high dive. Lanter realized that picking up girls there was super easy and he could have his pick of the lot. The both aborted the mission, and let’s just say Lanter did do some studying that night, but no books were involved. It was more of a “hands on lesson”.

As for my night, I spent my time chatting with a couple of guys and a couple of girls. I ended up getting pretty drunk because the bartender gave me this huge 24 oz sized blue cup of mostly alcohol when I asked for one blue guy. I thought we was being nice but turns out I was wrong. As the exchange was ending a large group of locals soon entered the bar and we were waiting for our bus. This group was on a barcrawl and every single person was very very ghetto. John Parker and I decided to take a lap and I soon found myself in the center of a group of girls juking and dougieing. I decided to roll with it and began dancing with these nice girls. They were very uncomfortable at first but then began to go along with it. We were dancing for about thirty seconds when I realized everyone in the bar was staring at me, especially all the dudes. I quickly decided it was time to go and slowly danced away from the group of chicks. I made it outside and on the bus to kams. I spent another few hours at kams and finally woke up in my bed. Great night all around.

The weather here has finally turned as well. Today was the warmest day of the year by far. It must have been 60 degrees out and all of the snow melted away. There is nothing like the first spring day when you can take of you coat and walk around in short sleeves. 

You will not go to heaven, you’ll go to Champaign Illinois. 

Lucky Smiles Confusion

Danny up in hurr for this one.

I will start off by saying that Saturday, February 5th was probably the greatest day in the life of Andrew Albert Smiles.

It all starts when the Illini lost at Northwestern. As we watched the CBS telecast, we all felt anger and frustration. Not a great start. But this day gets better.

In the afternoon, we walked over to the Armory to spectate the Club Track & Field meet. Aaron Silver anchored (what's up Delta Gamma followers?) the 4 x 1600 relay. He dominated with his own indoor PR. That stands for personal record.

After the big meet, we were all inspired to work out. So we got a good pump in while jamming out to Lucky Boys Confusion.

For dinner, we travelled to Joe's Brewery. Isn't it weird that they do not brew beer there? Anyways, we all ordered cheeseburgers. The waitress was nice enough to give them to us for HALF PRICE!!! I think she did it just for us. What was more amazing was the fact that Smiles upgraded his fries to...get this...mac 'n cheese! This was no box o' Kraft. This bowl was loaded with so many goodies: bacon, extra cheese on top, you name it, it had it. He could not stop talking about it. Even with a mouthful of mac, he continued to rave. Rohde almost left a bite on his plate. He was peer pressured into eating it. After we all downed few pitchers of water, it was time to go.

Kyle and I went to baseball practice as Smiles and Co. slurped up some liquid carbs. Upon our return, we headed to a much anticipated event on campus...the Lucky Boys Confusion concert at Canopy Club. We got there in time to see the end of the Good Luck Jane set. They were followed by the one and only Draft Week. Zevin and his beard slapped the bass and looked cool on stage. After Draft Week, Smiles and Kirby each chugged a pitcher of PBR to prepare for LBC. When Stubhy and his friends got on stage, the place went nuts. Rohde and Parker moshed hard for an insane amount of time. I think Rohde tallied 25 tackles on the night. Parker was right behind him with 18.

Goethals and I spent most of the concert about three people away from the stage. Smiles, on the other hand, was even closer. I wouldn't say he was front row, but he could at least grab hold of the rail. He even admitted to giving the guy next to him a few good jabs in the ribcage.

So Smiles is right there. He's pumped. He's having a great time. Jamming out loud to every song. His sweat and happiness meters were at an all-time high. About two-thirds of the way through the concert, Stubhy was filling time between songs and while holding a shot of vodka. Smiles felt the need to encourage him by yelling, "VODKA! VODKA! VODKA!" Stubhy apparently didn't need any help as he said, "Shutup drunkass." Everyone laughed because it was funny and that what you do when something is funny. But the story does not stop there. He then went on to say, "Speaking of this drunkass. Yeah, sorry about screwing up back there. During Killians, I was getting close to the crowd and this drunkass was yelling random stuff that was nowhere near the words to the song. I usually don't let these things affect me, but this time for some reason it did. So, I guess, if I had to blame someone, it would be the drunkass right here."

As Stubhy said that, he extended a pound (fist, knucks, closed hand, whatever you want to call it) towards the center of the crowd. Of course, 15 people reached out to touch Stubhy. He retracted his pound and said, "No. Just the drunkass." It was then he extended his pound again and made perfect contact with the knuckles of Andrew Albert Smiles.

Goethals and I went crazy. Smiles interrupted an LBC concert for his drunken shenanigans and then was recognized for it in front of everyone. I turning to Kyle and saying, "This has to be the coolest thing that has ever happend to Smiles!"

The cool didn't stop there. After the encore, Stubhy invited anyone to come up onto the stage. I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Andy was on the stage within minutes. He didn't go to the back and mix in with the rest of the wannabes. He stood front and center and directed the crown.

He gave them Gerry Bertier-like points.

He acted like the conductor of an orchestra as the crowd chanted "LBC! LBC! LBC!"

Kyle then had a thought: we could nab the set list. He screamed to Smiles the vital command, "SET LIST! SET LIST!"

Smiles bent down and scratched...but came up empty. He reported back to us, "IT'S TAPED!"

Kyle exclaimed, "OF COURSE IT'S TAPED DOWN!"

By now, we were worried someone else heard the set list conversation and would swoop in and snag it under Smiles. Not tonight. Not on the greatest night of Drew's life. The security guard noticed his struggles and leaned a speaker off of the set list. This gave Smiles just enough room to rip two-thirds of the set list off of the stage and hand it safely to Goethals.

We walked home in the bitter cold that froze our sweat-drenched clothes. Along the way, we talked about how many people will enjoy this story. While crossing the street, Smiles screamed, "This is going to be the best blog post EVER!!!!!"


Goethals put him in his place with, "Shutup, Smiles. Blog posts aren't that cool."


We ate reheated Geo's chicken and reminisced about the crazy night.

R.I.P. Room 24's table. Loomis stumbled in and walked into Smiles. They both fell over onto the already-injured table. You will be missed.

You will not go to Heaven...You'll go to Champaign, Illinois.

Terry’s Birthday Sauce and related events

Hello world travelers, Kyle here again with another guest blog post.  You’re might be thinking, “Gee, another guest post from this Kyle guy??  He’s basically a full timer!”  Well, as Smiles and Kirby will tell you, I spend an equivalent amount of time in their room as I do mine.  So if you start to feel like you see/read too much of me, you’re not the only one. 

By now, you’ve probably read the title and are eagerly awaiting some of the promised ‘sauce’ mentioned in the title.  Well patience is a virtue, and good things come to those who wait.  I won’t actually get to the sauce part until the 7^th paragraph, so don’t hold your breath.  Regardless, this blog entry is about Terry’s 21^st birthday celebration last Friday, along with some details from Colin’s 21^st last Monday.  If you enjoy birthdays, bodily fluids, or alliteration, I’d like to encourage you to read on. 

It was Friday night, and I had just got off my Friday night shift at Flat Top Grill with $75 American dollars to show for my efforts.  Before you ask, I’ll let you know that the co-worker from my pervious blog post wasn’t there.  Awkwardness avoided.  Anyway, I arrived home to a basement bumping with sound.  Apparently they decided not to wait for me to start partying, but that must have come as a result of the language barrier between me and the locals, so I wasn’t offended.  I quickly changed my clothes and headed down to the celebration. 

I find it ironic that people celebrate their birth here by destroying their bodies with alcohol.  Not  my culture, not my problem.  With an extra large cup of apple juice in hand, I joined the festivities already in progress.  I immediately ran into Terry, and wished him a happy birthday as is the custom.  Meg McCaleb, also from the previous blog post, had made the trip from Australia for the event and was still hiding her accent.  She seemed excited to see me, which was awkward cause I didn’t really care about seeing her.  Fun side note: At one point during the party, Meg started flexing her biceps and Vinnie was genuinely impressed.  He told me so in the weight room yesterday.

In typical Terry fashion, everyone had their fair share of Bud Selects, and the singing and dancing rituals began.  Pretty soon everyone was sweating to the sounds of 90’s pop.  And of course, Terry was sweating the most.  I had never seen about half the people at the party before, and some of them were apparently too cool for the singing and dancing ritual.  But overall, the pregame was a raging success.  

On the way to the bars, Terry called multiple audibles that disrupted the force of his birthday charge.  We followed his very loud voice to Joes, only to find out he was actually at Cly’s.  Clys’ line was over 30 meters long, which I guess would be about 100ft in local measurement.  It was already 1am, which led Mills and I to question why anyone would be remotely interested in standing in this line, with essentially no chance of achieving admittance.  We arrived at the conclusion that in Champaigne, there are people who like to stand inside of bar, and those that enjoy standing in line.  It’s a cultural difference that will take some getting used to. 

Ok, if you just skipped to this paragraph because I mentioned in the in opening paragraph…fuck you.  Go back and read the other paragraphs.  If they weren’t important I wouldn’t have written them.  Anyway, the Terry shenanigans progressed quickly and took on its own life form.  Back home from the bars, he cut his hand on Krieger’s abs, and started bleeding profusely.  But Terry made lemonade out of his lemons, and took this opportunity to decorate the walls of the house with legendary blood scripture.  Epic messages like “Terry + Kevyn” and drawings of hearts took permanent residence on the beige walls, and by permanent I mean until Terry left the room and Eddie Edens scrubbed them off. Jump to 4am, when Terry thought it would be super cool to throw a jar of salsa all over me and my door.  I’ve added a picture below.  There is still dried salsa on my door.  I’m sure Terry will be back soon to clean it up.  

In between 2am and 4am, it was apparent that Terry’s tendency for balderdash (look it up) was contagious.  On a whim, me and my 4 closest friends in the house (Turk, Jamieson, Logan, and Kristian…duh) snuck over to another fraternity and stole their rush banner.  I don’t know which fraternity it was because I’m not familiar with the town much…it’s not like the name was written on the banner or anything.

Also I walked in Meg McCaleb and Cuzman making out.  End of paragraph. 

And that was about it for Terry’s birthday.  Besides playing N64 literally all day on Saturday, the next interesting thing that happened to me was Monday for Colin Cuzman’s birthday.  We tried to get Colin extremely drunk, but he remained somewhat conscious over the course of the night.  He later admitted to spitting out shots we were giving him, and I’m expecting a big financial refund from him the mail any day now.  For some reason he wanted to go to the Red Lion, and we obeyed because everyone is afraid of the brute force that is Colin Cuzman.  Wahab hooked Mills and I up with some sweet wristbands, immediately making Cuzman’s birthday unimportant.  Oh you’re turning 21? You can buy drinks now? Welcome to the club, Mills and I will be at the bar buying our own drinks.  

The best part of Red Lion had to be the sweet dancing that commenced later in the night.  Steph, Colleen, Colin, Kirby, Parker, Lanter, random dude and I ruled the dance floor with epic dance moves like the Bernie, which you can see featured below.  It was very sweaty, and everyone was intoxicated.  Just like Cuzman likes it.  I don’t even know what I mean by that, I’m rather tired.

There you have it, two 21^st birthdays in Champaigne.  It’s amazing that I seem to experience something new every day, and even more amazing that Meg continues to get mentioned in my posts.  She doesn’t even go here.  Whatever, I gotta do homework or something.  Stay tuned for outlandish stories with superlative adjectives. 

Kyle 

Sleeping Arrangements

Mills is back again.

As Drew mentioned, Thursday night at Geovanti's was quite a grand time. Drew and Goethals on the mic saved the day. Maura even came out. We are eternally grateful for her presence. We jammed out all night until they kicked us out.

Gayballs and I decided it would be appropriate to purchase some world famous Geo's chicken strips. We brought them back to our host family's Great Hall. I hadn't even finished one strip, and I decided it was time to go to bed. My next memory is Jake Rohde looking up at me and telling me to get out of his bed. This is what seemed to happen...

I walked into Room 31 (Jake's room and Jake's bed are both in the same location as mine - directly one floor above...maybe that confused me?) and asked Rohde if I could sleep up there. In his drunken/half asleep mindset, he allowed this to occur. Mike Wong is an eyewitness to both of sleeping in the same twin bed. I do not know the length of time that this went on for. When Rohde got up to go to the bathroom (thanks for not peeing on me, Jake) he came back and woke me up. Without having a ladder to get down, I was awfully confused. Jake tried giving me instructions about stepping on the door handle, but this inevitably led to me falling down and knocking over a glass of water. I then walked downstairs and finished the night in the comfort of my own bed in Room 23.

What have I learned about Champaigné? There are no "assigned" beds here. Everyone is welcome to sleep with whomever they want, whenever they want. It is an incredible freedom. I only wish that everyone in the world could experience this unique lifestyle.

You will not go to Heaven, you'll go to Champaign, Illinois.

The Crazies

               This week has been a little low key here in Champainge. Classes have actually started to kick into gear and it has set in that this place is not a never-ending orgy of money, fame, and drinking. But we still had a good time.

                On Tuesday the guys and I went out to one of the local hot spots for a thing called wine night. I guess on this special night at the Clyborne, all the bottles of wine are 9 dollars. This is cheap especially because this is only about 6.50 euro! What a deal!

                Thursdays are the big night in champaigne each and every week. All of the students are almost done with class (Some who are studying for business degrees don’t even have class on Friday) and want to celebrate by partying. This Thursday we decided to go to Brothers, but when we got there, the line was all the way down the street. Miller and I were with Jake Rhode, Kyle Goethalls and Alex Ostott and none of us wanted to wait in the cold, so we went to a place called Geovanti’s. This place is a restaurant upstairs and a bar downstairs and is great because most people don’t know about the bar.

There was a great local band playing live music called Draft Week and all the guys when crazy for them, especially the very untalented bassist. Draft Week did, however, play some great cover songs like Bruce Springsteen, Four seasons, Katy Perry, and Blink 182. The highlight of the night was when they wanted to play Third Eye Blind’s Semi-Charmed Life but didn’t know the words. Luckily for them Kyle and I were there to offer up our vocal services to them. They agreed and I was lead vocals while Kyle rocked the backup vocals. It was the greatest moment longer than one minute in my life. We really nailed the song and even the people who we didn’t know said we were awesome.

Now to the main point of the story: Girls with Crazy eyes. These are girls who lock-in, girls who search and destroy, girls who refuse to give up, and girls who act without any sense of logic. Now I know if you’re a guy, you have at least one girl in your mind that has crazy eyes, and if you’re a girl, you question the existence of such things. Let me be the one to tell you, they exist and they are sneaky. On Wednesday night, Kyle Goethals, John Parker Colin Cuzman and I experience firsthand the sneaky traps of a woman of this caliber when we met a girl from Kyle’s class.  

The first sign of a crazy girl is right at the point you see her, she will immediately scream and say how she has been looking for you all night and is soo happy to see you. You may think you were the one guy she wanted to see but she has told that to at least five other guys by now. If this happens to you do not panic, you still have plenty of time to escape but whatever you do, do not fall for the next move the guilt trip drink. This is her attempt to get drunker for free and get you drunk enough to slip fully into her grasp. It’s a bad move for that reason and the fact that it will cost you money.

Next is the fatal move, the clench. Once this happens you know that as a male you’re in deep trouble and you are going to need some help to get out of this jam. The clench can come in many forms, but is most commonly a hand clench (not a nice gentle hold like normal girls but a deathly grip that makes you wonder if she is giving birth), arm grab (you may think she’s grabbing your huge but she’s reeling you in) or a belt grab (this is the most obvious and dangerous grasp). At this point, most people are going to try to escape and put some distance between them and the crazy. Whatever you do, do not say you’re going to the bathroom. This is the most obvious ditch attempt and she will know what you are up to immediately. This is visible in many situations where guys have actually had to go to the bathroom, gone, waited in line, and come out only to find their wonderful lady waiting for them outside asking why you tried to ditch her. Logic is out the door especially if she’s drunk and she will almost certainly start to cry.

Once the tears start to flow, any man is a goner. She is guilt tripping you right into your bed. Do not offer to walk her home, just immediately walk away. Tell her you have a girlfriend. Tell her you have class in the morning. Tell her you have class now. Tell her you have diarrhea. Anything. If you decide to bring her back your life will be ruined. She will assume you’re dating and tell everyone she knows and once you tell people you two are not together, she will make up terrible rumors about you and convince everyone you raped her….. Well maybe that’s a bit unrealistic but still be careful.

In the end we all made it out alive and the girl from Kyle’s class was sent home empty handed. We had a great week and I can’t wait for some more great times.

Remember, when you die you will not go to heaven, you’ll go to Champaign, Illinois. 

Week de Syllabus

Millsap here.


I slept in on Tuesday and went to my first class of the semester a half hour late - great academic start to 2011. Later that night, our host family had a supposed "recruitment event" at their house. There was plenty of hand shaking and talking. Someone told me after one month of doing this, they would have new brothers. I know the stork theory is not true, but I never knew shaking hands would have that effect. Later Tuesday night, Goethals, Rasley and I were invited to a "Club Baseball practice." It was a nice gesture of them to include us. We got dressed, had a few drinks, then were ready to finally try out the club scene. We had heard great things about the music, dancing, and ladies. To our surprise, we went to a giant dome with fake grass. There were no drinks and no music. Guys were throwing and hitting little white balls. Needless to say, we are still adapting to the culture. That night, we did not hit the pubs, but other of our housemates did. It must be a old tradition to come home and hold down an air horn for hours. Simply put, Smiles does not like that tradition.


Wednesday will go down in history as the night Goethals sold his body in public (see guest post below). On Thursday, we played Four Corners (which is quickly becoming our favorite game) and went Kam's (which is quickly becoming our favorite pub). Upon returning to our house, we sat in Room 24 until Smiles fell asleep on his couch.


I woke up on Friday and had zero intentions of going out that night. I had to be up early on Saturday so I was looking forward to hanging out at the house for the night. Within an hour, I received a text from my brother Kevin who is studying abroad in Bloomingtoné, which is only about 45 minutes away from Champaigné. He told me he was coming to visit that night. So my plans change and following an afternoon nap, Kevin came with Jackson, Garrett, and Brian. After playing some Four Corners (naturally) we went to a place nicknamed "Late Night" because they serve food late at night. Get it? My waffle fries and chicken strips that Stu provided for me were delicious. We decided to check out Joe's Brewery, but there were 2 big busses parked outside. I was told that these "paddy wagons" take kids to jail. I don't understand why people would want to do that. We went to Kam's and were excited to see no line. We ultimately did not go in because they would not grant us entrance without paying $5. No thanks. That led us to Johnstowne Apartments to play a game called Things. On our way home we ventured to the Alpha Phi house to pound some chocolate milks and heat up burgers in a panini maker.



My highlight of Saturday came circa 1AM when I went to Castillo's place. We started to clean up for beer pong and a bunch of nasty liquids ended up in a cup. Manfa and Watters offered Castillo $10 to chug the cup without puking. Let's just say Castillo is $10 richer. I later got Geo's chicken with my cousin Mike and had a big time life talk with Smiles, Clay, and Rohde back at the house.


Oh, the Bears' season is over.


You will not go to heaven, you'll go to Champaign, Illinois.