the __earthinc

Lo and behold, with nothing write, I’ve decided to go against one of my own rules. This is one of of my diary entries. It doesn’t mention anything about my feelings so I guess there is nothing for me to be scared of about revealing this entry.

8th APRIL 2002

Last weekend was fantastic. On Saturday, Fer invited me to join him for shopping at Briarwoods. Epol also tagged along with us.

As usual, being environmental-conscious sophomores (actually, it’s the only transportation we can afford), we took the bus and it cost me roughly USD 2 for the to and fro ticket. The journey took maybe about half an hour but once we got there, the fun began. First stop was the music store. Fer bought a disc man for USD 60++ but that was not the thing that I am highlighting. In the store, we practically reviewed each and every movie that is being sold there. The store was huge and it took us probably nearly an hour before we said, “There are some cool movies in here…” The salesperson was about to assist when he realized what we were really doing. After that, we toured Briarwoods and helped Fer chose a shoe. I myself bought a yellow Wolverine t-shirt for USD 10. AND, I bought an ORIGINAL computer game. Impressive huh?

Soon, we got tired and went back to campus at 1600 hrs. To our surprise, Saturday was Hash Bash Day. A lot of people were gathering at the Diag and elsewhere. The State St. was full and I think I couldn’t possibly picture how the Main St. looked like.

Basically, Hash Bash is a day when people celebrate a day of Marijuana or also known as hash. At the Diag, there were a lot of people smoking hash and there was a group of people playing the drum or something. I must say, hash smells good although I didn’t try it.

Police personals were almost everywhere, overseeing the event so that there will be no serious drug offenses being conducted at the Diag.

Despite the heavy presence of police officers, people just ignored the police and did their things. There were a lot of cute dogs walking and playing around. Some students also played something like “sepak raga” but with a sort of softball. Even fewer played Frisbee.
Bored and realizing that it was a nice day, we decided to give the Arb a visit. Exhausted, we rested at my room before heading to Oxford to start our exploration of the Arb.

At around 1730, we walked to Oxford and from there, the Arb was just across Geddes St.

The Arb was marvelous. Greens cover it floor and the trees seem like they dressed for us although the leaves are yet to be reincarnated. Not to forget, the sky was magnificently bluish with little groups of cotton-liked white clouds decorated the high ceiling.

We followed the dirt path and walked slowly while talking to each other about our dreams and ambitions, friends etc.

With little effort, we reached the river, situated downhill. This was my first time of actually being so near to a river after so many months. Huron River is beautiful. Its water flows endlessly without any stains of man-made stuff. There were just fresh water, dead branches, rocks and some fishes. The smell of that peaceful area was stimulating. It was a smell that I haven’t had the opportunity of experiencing since a very long time.

We walked upstream, toward the University Hospital, constructed on a near the edge of the Hill Area. With nothing to do, we climbed a brick stair leading us up to the top of the hill. Our energy was taken away from us but the reward was satisfying; the view of North Campus from the top of the hill was breathtaking and thus being without much energy, we were simply breathless. We settled down to catch our breath and while doing that, Fer made a joke about Physics. He said that we lost our energy but Epol and I, being a little bit excited for adventure said we also gained energy. With no intention of losing the fight, Fer continued that we lost our chemical energy but the other two members of the expedition in retaliation said that we gained gravitational potential energy.

It was stupid a argument for all three of us knew that we never actually lost any energy. We merely converted it from one form to the other. We laughed and dropped Physics from our petty discussion.

The Sun was setting, making the skies looked pinkish red; it was getting cold, our muscles were full with acid and we were wearing just thin-insulated jackets. Therefore, we were eager to wait for the blue bus to walking all the way back to Central Campus.
Nevertheless, we were also hungry. Realizing there is a restaurant nearby, walked further north and actually reached the Engineering Campus. It was an amazing feat considering only very few people are willing to waste they calories just to walk more than 10 km. In that restaurant, I met up with Fatima, an old acquaintance which I knew from Calculus 2 class and with a Russian guy of which I can’t recall his name. I recognized that Russian guy because he was in my Economics 101 lecture during the Fall 2001 semester. We had a little chat until I actually had to run for the bus heading back to Central Campus.

The day hadn’t come to an end yet.

That evening, I had wanted to go to North Campus to play badminton but Epol somehow managed to convince me to play table tennis at the Central Campus Recreation Center instead. Conviced by him, at 2000 hrs, the previous “Arb Exploring Team” met up at the bridge connecting the North Hall area with the Palmer Field. They were late but to my delighted surprise, Satchi decided to join us to flex some muscles.

Inside, we were disappointed as there wasn’t any spare table for us but nevertheless, we won’t give the evening up so easily. I took up the squash racquets and sweated. I was wet due to my usual high metabolism.

Later, there was a free table for us. We quickly booked that table and had fun until the ball cracked. Not wanting to pay any damage, we returned the ball before we break it into two worthless piece of junk.

At 2330, we headed to the Mug and bought some midnight snacks and we played Daytona under the Michigan Union. Epol emerged as the winner.

At 0000, we joined Wye Khuen in his room.

0200, it was time to sleep.