Monday, Bitch

V's B-day celebration got a little more out-of-control than initially expected. The disappointment of the night would definetely have to be Wando's. DO NOT BUY A FISH BOWL AT WANDO'S. IT will be the worst investment of your life. 2 bowls/2 people which equals $20/person which equals sober. Don't get it. I did finally go to Karaoke Kid though and had a blast. Karaoke isn't actually more fun than any party on Gilman, but I did make a contact. Yeah, I decided to network on an AIESEC social. We'll see how far that one goes, but the guy worked for a tire company in Japan for a year before changing jobs back in the US. This seemed to be a little similar to my experience, so we bonded quite well. That and his taste in sing-along 80s music. All this on a Monday night that I will have to end NOW so that I can get 3 hours of sleep to get my Tuesday 8AM shift of work in.

One final night

The Madtown crew gave The Dode his final farewells to the sweet city of Chicago. The night started off with the group splitting up with JD, Grace, and I going to a techno club (inwhich I was molested many-a-time by the transvestite bartenders and stray women) and Ali, Mix, Dody, Meyers, BG and Jenna going to a different bar. I brushed off the minor irritation and danced the night away. Eventually Grace wanted to meet back up with the others so we took a cab a short ways over to a strange bar that played 80s soft rock music.

Back-up. Mix, Grace, Jenna and I decided to start off the party at 6PM in Ali's car. This was my first time not driving to an event, so I indulged myself with the Captain's spirits. Mix and I pretty much halved the handle in the car. Then we got to Dody's house and decided we didn't have enough alcohol to last the night so I was sent as Errand Boy and got another bottle of Bacardi and something else. We also mixed a couple bottles of Belguim Red and some chased it down with a little Tequila. THEN we went to the bars.

My goal for the night was to dance. As Grace so kindly put,"I would look over there and all I saw were Bruni's knees flyin' all over the place." I think that means I was dancing. Goal accomplished.

succumb

I decided to join the now infamous, FACEBOOK. I'm not linking to it. It's way too addicting for me, but in a bad way. At least by reading blogs, I'm learning about the world and seeing the world through someone else's eyes. What do you learn from facebook? Where that girl met the guy down the street who played volleyball with the girl that knows the guy who went streaking last night? who cares.

I went to the first day of our Engineering Career Fair. I tried pulling double duty of getting myself an internship for the summer as well as trying to setup some leads for AIESEC. Hopefully I got a couple leads, but the only promising internship possibilities so far I don't want. I'll find something, but it'd be nice to get it set where I will be working. I also found out that I'm good at explaining what AIESEC is and what I've done in it and how it impacts people, but I still suck at actually selling it to a company. I'm stuck on selling it to students; businesses are NOT students. I have gotten a lot better and talking faster and with more content, but I'm not sure if I'm quite ready for this hook me in 30-sec or move on. It always seemed to take me at least a couple minutes to get any sort of meaningful interest from the HR rep. I'll improve.

Week One Completed

My 2:25 lecture miraculously moved to another temporary classroom, although, I do not know where this would be, so I have time blog. My mind is drained. Not quite sure why, but it is. While roaming the halls looking for clues to where this new classroom might be, I stumbled upon a 'Brain Teaser.' It was a worksheet with 7 different exercises for you to do to 'keep your mind sharp.' I remember doing these things in grade school and breezing through them. GRADE SCHOOL. I immediately started the sheet by trying to finish a Sudoku puzzle, which someone else blogged about recently. I couldn't finish it. I didn't actually try that hard, but I used to be able to finish puzzles similar to it in like 5 minutes. I used to work on logic problem books for road trips as a kid. I can't even do one simple puzzle that grade schoolers can figure out.

Hopefully this weekend relaxing in Random Lake will give my mind some rest. I'm sure coming back to a house in Madison after the weekend (as I have been homeless the last 5 days) will also help.

REWIND: I arrived in Chicago last Friday and chilled in a recent Madtown grad's apt. We watched 'Old Boy' that night. Not what I expected. I tried getting it in Japan, but it ended up being the Korean version with Japanese subtitles. That didn't help and so I only managed to watch the first 5 minutes or so. I guess I didn't realize how much understanding the words meant to understanding the movie. There is a ton of symbolism and foreshadowing. Also, I tried watching it a second time on Saturday afternoon, but I was cringing through the entire opening sequence. That night we went to the 'Funky Buddha Lounge.' I thought Williams/Dody had mentioned something about a Buddha lounge in their stays in Chicago so I told the girls to look it up; I was wrong. The $20 cover for less than 2 hours of staying time isn't exactly my kind of place, but I enjoyed the hip-hop dancing nonetheless. In the last week, I have averaged 4.5 hours of sleep, maybe. I think this might have to do with the logic problem.

Leaving Home

Leaving Home
Originally uploaded by mjbruni.

Im at Kanku（Kansai Airport）and have checked-in my luggage. I have 3 hours till gate opens. I decided to sit down and eat my last serving of udon. I struggle greatly with the order. A Japanese man sitting at a booth across from me starts a conversation in English. He says,“You must have been in Japan awhile.” Im thinking“Yes, I hold chopsticks well.”I ask him why and he says“You are eating udon.” that was sweet. i didnt even think that I was voluntarily eating traditional Japanese food in a traditional Japanese restaurant. It seemed normal.



I am again blogging this from my phone. cell mail ga suki desu.

My Last Night

Eating ice cream on the Big Red Ferris Wheel on top of a 9-story building in the center of Umeda (Osaka) with 3 of the 4 AIESECers that started my whole Japanese experience. Spectacular view and ending to a crazy 5 months. Missing the place already. Next stop: Madison and finishing that darn degree I promised myself I'd finish.

Second Try

SO tonight I will be hosting the second dance party at my house. This time people are planningon staying over. Again, I have to work tomorrow.

The problem is that I can't remember AIESEC dances. Until 4 days ago, I haven't done AIESEC dances in almost a year. Seriously, WSC LAST YEAR was the last time I have done the dances. They may have been done a couple times at one of our parties on Gilman, but it was probably only 'Tunak, Tunak' and 'We like to Party' as these were the house favorites.

I now have 13 dances on the list; I only know how to do 6. Pretty sad. Anyways, the idea that I will not be in Japan after 7:20PM on Friday has not sunk in. I'm now starting the process of transferring all my new files over from my laptop to my HDD. I also seem to have a head cold that will not leave. This may or may not be due to my very irregular sleeping, eating and functioning patterns. Tonight isn't going to change any of those three. I'll deal with this irregularity better once I'm back in Madtown.

MIX, are you alive? We should probably get the sublet thing done pretty soon. Slacker.

put one foot in front of the other

The realization that I will not be in Japan in seven days has set in. I am headed for a maddash to come out of this unscathed, but I am draggin my feet in the dirt, not wanting it to start. I have 3 days to make my final presentation for Toyo AND create a new part for a tire. I have 2 days to make and finish my final presentation for AIESEC, which will not be about Toyo at all. I have 8 days to find a place to live in Madison that isn't out of my insanely small budget. Starting in 7 days, I will have 3 days to recover from the 15hour time zone shift and change from a work to school mentality. I also have the LC retreat mixed in those 3 days. I also will be without anything but my clothing from the 13th to the 21st, as all of it will be in my house in Random Lake. Laundry is beeping. Tonights party was good; not American or Madison and I needed that. We danced a lot with no punch. I also cooked dinner. Masaki gave me a video of him and some other AIESECers doing a lot of Asian/Japanese AIESEC dances. They are rediculously hard, but a ton of fun. I also showed the partiers some American songs. They caught on quite easily. Laundry is beeping again. The rush has begun. left-right-left ...

the party of the new year

the @ers have made it clear that they wanted me to host a party in my m'e" by m'e" apt. Although not the ideal location, I figured it could be done. 5 months and still no party. One side would always find some reason why it couldn't happen. Tomorrow, this is all supposed to change. As I never made it on my trip to Kyushu (I haven't posted this entry yet as it doesn't seem to have anything positive coming from it), I have been given more time to plan the party. I am a little scared though. At the New Years celebration with Rick, I was thoroughly brought aware of the fact that Japanese women DO NOT DANCE. seriously, they don't. Girls are the wall-flowers that kind of shake their heads to the beat, but then pretend they weren't as soon as you look at them and absolutely make a fit when you try an coax them on. I used to be that guy in the US; it was very weird being on the other side of the coin.

Anyways, I told my managers to bring their dancing shoes and drinking caps for a New Years party, American(more Bruni)-style. I'm not sure if they understood, but I definetly said I'm making some special Madison Punch as well as planning games. I also have been talking about @dances so much that they said they wanted to learn them. Hopefully the punch will help the learning curve. I know it sure did for me.

Given that my apt is tiny, here are my planned adjustments:
-move my bed and mattress to the small balcony outside
-move my microwave, pots and pans and small IH frying thing outside as well
-consolidate my laptop and speakers to a single chair in the corner
-put my table and remaining chairs in the bathtub
-move the large table/storage thing to the center of the room for Flip Cup/Boat Races

Still deciding if I should just push the mattress up against the wall so that later we could possibly still use it for a late night reflection of The Big Lebowski. hmmmm....

What's awesome is that I work Friday. The only day this week. Most people would hope for a good morning. No. I'm hoping that I will wonder how my head is still connected to my body and why I can't do anything to change this fact. It's the only tried and true test of a New Years party.