****This was written during the second week of school****
How many sorority girls does it take to change a light bulb?
1 to screw it in and 40 to wear t-shirts about the event.
As I’m sure the student body on SJSU’s campus has noticed, thanks to the hordes of matching neon pink t-shirts, the splendid time of year known as fall recruitment is upon us once again.
Women quickly start avoiding Seventh Street due to the Pan-Hellenic Council table which calls it home, and consequently the area where the PHC sorority women in mass congregate to talk to other women about the SJSU Greek community. The women who do not have the luck of being able to avoid this area pass by speedily; they will pull out their cell phones and have an imaginary conversation, they give that glowering annoyed look most reserve for the stalls that sit out in the middle of the walk way at the mall with the somewhat questionable sales guy who wants you to try some amazing new Dead Sea hand scrub. Women preemptively explain that they are late to class and shrug off attempts at being handed flyers. They explain that they already know what sorority life is about and want no part of it.
As adults, we know that stereotypes exist. Blondes are stupid. Fraternity men are alcoholics. Asians are bad drivers.
At the beginning of this semester the Pan-Hellenic Council presented to our houses the stereotypes the other councils on campus (UFC, IFC, and NPHC) came up with for PHC women. Among the list, were white girls, daddy’s girls, rich, snobby, easy, cheaters, stupid, partiers, and two-faced, friendly, yet fake and backstabbers. Sad to say, the list goes on.
I can’t tell you how disheartening it is when a co-worker or friend scoffs at me saying “I can’t believe you are a sorority girl! You’re too nice. You don’t seem ANYTHING like that trash” and yes it has been said. It’s moments like those where one should stop and consider the evidence presented to them which is contradictory to past assumptions.
We often feed our own ideas and stereotypes of other groups because we fail to even allow the possibility to cross our minds that we may be wrong. People will also see an opportunity to make one group the center of an issue instead of addressing how those same characteristics are present in everyone.
Being one of those women and knowing those women who are out there at the table, I can assure you it is not an easy thing to do. We make ourselves look bad by standing clustered together in the middle of Seventh Street talking and fanning ourselves. I can personally attest to the fact that no matter what it may look like we are not talking bad about you. We do say “oh, let’s go talk to her” and then we see you pull out the cell phone and speed up, so we stop walking. Or we’ll see another girl who is with her boyfriend or just some guy, but as we approach she’ll move closer to him or grab his arm at which point we turn around and look for someone else who we feel won’t shut us down if we say hi to them and extend our hand.
You do not want us to talk to you because of our stereotypes, but we cement some of our stereotypes when we fail to connect with you.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Another year has come and gone...
On Wednesday I turned 21. Big whoop. Tuesday at midnight, I bought two bottles of tequila, went over to Sigma Nu with my roommate and a friend from AOΠ, and promptly drank the night away. I officially understand how annoying it is when you buy alcohol and everyone else finishes it before you even get a sip. Before I could even bat an eye the first bottle was gone.
To be honest with you I don’t even like drinking. I mean, it is fun on occasion and it can add flavor to a meal, but on the whole I think it is highly over rated.
I feel fortunate enough to have already passed through my “lets get wasted!” phase. I’ve been 21 for 2 days and I still have yet to go out to a bar.
To be honest with you I have no clue what I am trying to say here. Life is super stressful right now and being 21 has just escalated that stress. I’ve had at least five people approach me with their thoughts on how wonderful it is, for them, that I am now 21. My turning 21 means that these people have to only walk to the next room to find someone old enough to buy booze.
I am not confrontational in the least and I am still struggling with the best way to say, “No way in hell would I ever buy you alcohol. Ask someone else”. The girls who have made these comments are barely legal and ridiculously immature. Most of them have a horrible track record of doing stupid and idiotic things while being intoxicated. What makes them think that I would ever promote their bizarre behavior by purchasing them alcohol?
I need to stop expecting things from life and people. Every time I have expectations, high or low, I am always grossly disappointed. I expect a lot from the world and even more from myself.
I really don’t know what I am trying to say, so I’m going to stop here. Come back in a few days and maybe I will have fixed this mess of irrelevant and unrelated thoughts.
To be honest with you I don’t even like drinking. I mean, it is fun on occasion and it can add flavor to a meal, but on the whole I think it is highly over rated.
I feel fortunate enough to have already passed through my “lets get wasted!” phase. I’ve been 21 for 2 days and I still have yet to go out to a bar.
To be honest with you I have no clue what I am trying to say here. Life is super stressful right now and being 21 has just escalated that stress. I’ve had at least five people approach me with their thoughts on how wonderful it is, for them, that I am now 21. My turning 21 means that these people have to only walk to the next room to find someone old enough to buy booze.
I am not confrontational in the least and I am still struggling with the best way to say, “No way in hell would I ever buy you alcohol. Ask someone else”. The girls who have made these comments are barely legal and ridiculously immature. Most of them have a horrible track record of doing stupid and idiotic things while being intoxicated. What makes them think that I would ever promote their bizarre behavior by purchasing them alcohol?
I need to stop expecting things from life and people. Every time I have expectations, high or low, I am always grossly disappointed. I expect a lot from the world and even more from myself.
I really don’t know what I am trying to say, so I’m going to stop here. Come back in a few days and maybe I will have fixed this mess of irrelevant and unrelated thoughts.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
What is in a nightmare?
The last time that I can remember waking up in a cold sweat, terrified to open my eyes and convinced that what I just experienced was real, I was, at most, around 12 years old. I remember this dream only because I had the unfortunate displeasure of having the same dream more than once. In this dream my house was a haunted house ride at Universal Studios – except that it was truly haunted. The guests were acting as security guards and watching security monitors throughout the queue. I don’t really remember what happened on the ride. I do, however, vividly remember that my upstairs closet, where we keep towels, sheets, pictures, and other random junk that doesn’t have a home elsewhere, was a restroom. Pretty insignificant, I know. However, sitting next to the toilet was a plate of pickles, yes pickles. And a sickly, skinny, misshapen greenish colored arm would reach out of the toilet searching for this plate, then quickly snatch one of the pickles up and return to wherever it had come from.
I know that that is not all that scary, but believe me; I was terrified to go to the bathroom after that.
Since that dream that I had when I was around 12, my nights have been pretty uneventful. As a matter of fact, I am lucky if I even faintly remember that I dreamt at all.
Recently this has changed.
This summer during my family’s tour of old southern cities we stopped in Charleston, S.C. Charleston is absolutely amazing. It is hands down one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. It is old and the city works hard to maintain its elegance. Charleston glows with southern charm and hospitality; and you almost have to be southern, or raised by southerners to understand and appreciate it. Being raised by southerners, I fell in love with Charleston the moment we drove across the first bridge.
We had just come from Savannah, where I had been entertained with flyers for ghost tours. Since Charleston is even older and bigger than Savannah I thought this was not something to be missed, so I hounded my mother to go on a ghost tour with me. She insisted that she was afraid of ghosts and graveyards, and I said I was too, but that we would be there together, so it couldn’t be that bad. She soon gave in.
Flipping through the flyers I was overwhelmed with so many different options for tours. There was a tour that took you through the old dungeons of Charleston, and through the graveyards and different places people have sighted ghosts. It’s not that I necessarily believe in ghosts, but it’s a different side of history – these aren’t the stories you read about in history books.
We decided to go on “The Dark Side of Charleston” tour. It was not a ghost tour, but it was ‘rated for mature audiences only’. Our tour started in a downpour that was over within 5 minutes, but it helped set the stage (“It was a dark and stormy night …”). Our tour guide showed us through downtown and the open market area. A family had donated about five huge open air market buildings to the city many years ago under the condition that the property would never be used to sell slaves.
Our tour guide also showed us where the red light district had been. He explained the politics behind it and how it had been established by the law enforcement and politicians of that day. He took us to the first whorehouse of Charleston. We were told some pretty comical stories about pimps hiding children under the floor so that while the john was being ‘entertained’ the children could quickly go through the john’s belongings and steal any extra cash or valuables he may have had with him.
There were “mattress girls” who carried straw mattresses on their back, like we carry backpacks, so their place of work was portable. A guy walking down the street who saw her could flick some money at her; she would set up shop right then and there and would get to work.
Our tour guide showed us where people were executed after being convicted in the court of marshal law and where they were executed after being convicted in a court of municipal law. There was an amazing intersection in town on which each corner there is a representation of the four areas of law: Federal, Municipal, Marshal and God’s law.
Many of the streets in Charleston are the original streets from when it was first built. The street where all of the slaves were sold is one such street. It is all cobblestones. It was painful to walk on. I can’t describe to you how eerie and dirty I felt standing there. Only a hundred and some odd years ago people were selling other humans right where I was standing.
Our last stop was a church. This was my favorite part of the whole tour. It was the first time that I wasn’t afraid of a graveyard, and ever since exploring it I haven’t been afraid.
The church was beautiful. The sky was a dark grey and was reflecting the city lights so it looked as if the clouds had their own glow. The church was round. Not round as in one big circular room, but more like a four- leaf clover type round. Apparently the church was built this way because people thought that the devil hides in corners.
I loved our tour. Once we were back in our room I immediately called my dad and told him every single story I could remember, every single detail that I had been holding onto just so I could recount our time to him.
I don’t know what happened on that tour, but I am convinced that something changed within me. Since we left Charleston I have had many sleepless nights. As a matter of fact I had one such night last night, which caused me to miss my 195a class this morning. I wake up in cold sweats terrified to open my eyes and terrified that if I don’t I will slowly drift back into another such dream.
The most terrifying I have had, which was so bad I woke myself up because I was crying, was about a little girl whose dad slaughtered her. She had managed to hang on so that she could haunt her old home and slaughtering anyone unfortunate enough to cross the threshold.
I remember that entire dream so intensely.
When I first walked into this old Victorian like building, there were these periwinkle blue, tiny flowers spinning on the floor as if they were floating on air. Like the air that was cradling them was slowly pulling them along making them dance just inches above the ground.
Just seconds later I’m filled with terror as I try and leave the house. I manage to make it out of the house, but now I am standing on this field at the bottom of a hill below the house. I can’t force myself to tear my eyes away from the house as I watch my friends being torn limb from limb by the ghost of a seven year old. Blood is spraying all over the glass windows as their screams fade.
What has left the most impact from that dream was the sudden flip from an image so beautiful and peaceful into something so horrid and miserable.
Usually my dreams involve zombies or something like them, which is what I dreamt about last night. However, it is not the creatures that make my dreams disturbing. It is how the people I am dreaming about handle the situations they find themselves in.
For example, more often than not, the people in my dreams are my immediate family, including myself. Last night, my mom knew that these bad people would be coming for us. There was something about a trip to Wall Mart. There was a huge earthquake at which point I ran away to find my boyfriend, because when I called his phone it said that I was trying to dial a Maryland number. (I don’t know so don’t ask). As we stood in my neighbor’s yard chatting it up about what had just happened, we watched a huge 747-with Halliburton written on its side fall apart as it was crashing. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in my room because strange noises were disturbing my sleep. For some reason there are at least 15 people congregated in my room. They all look possessed but blind as a bat. I manage to sneak out of my bed past them. Before I can leave the room though, I have to find something buried in my closet under a pile of shoes. I find it, though I’m not sure what “it” is, and lastly I play with the thermostat before leaving.
I run outside and tell my mom what has just happened. She’s still at the neighbor’s house acting like nothing unusual has just transpired. She says that she is going to go take a look and make sure that I wasn’t acting too hasty in my decision to arm the bomb that she had set up through out the house in our central air system.
Once she is inside the house, she calls me saying that I was wrong and everything is all right. She never gets the chance to explain to me who the hell those people were, because right then our house blows up.
In my dream, I am running around frantically as my big sis walks into my real room to wake me up and tell me that I have class in 15 minutes, I look at her and say no way in hell can I go to class.
Nope. I don’t function well after a night like that.
I know what you’re thinking, because I assure you I’m thinking the same thing at this moment, “that was ridiculous and not even close to a scary dream”. Yes, I see that now, but when I woke up in a cold sweat, that was not what was racing through my mind.
I wonder what it was that I heard or smelled, or saw in Charleston that woke up that part of my mind that enjoys scaring the crap out of me. I am convinced that whatever it is that is different about me changed in Charleston on that walking tour at midnight.
I wonder if that part of me will ever roll over and go back to sleep, so that I may again have a peaceful nights rest.
I know that that is not all that scary, but believe me; I was terrified to go to the bathroom after that.
Since that dream that I had when I was around 12, my nights have been pretty uneventful. As a matter of fact, I am lucky if I even faintly remember that I dreamt at all.
Recently this has changed.
This summer during my family’s tour of old southern cities we stopped in Charleston, S.C. Charleston is absolutely amazing. It is hands down one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. It is old and the city works hard to maintain its elegance. Charleston glows with southern charm and hospitality; and you almost have to be southern, or raised by southerners to understand and appreciate it. Being raised by southerners, I fell in love with Charleston the moment we drove across the first bridge.
We had just come from Savannah, where I had been entertained with flyers for ghost tours. Since Charleston is even older and bigger than Savannah I thought this was not something to be missed, so I hounded my mother to go on a ghost tour with me. She insisted that she was afraid of ghosts and graveyards, and I said I was too, but that we would be there together, so it couldn’t be that bad. She soon gave in.
Flipping through the flyers I was overwhelmed with so many different options for tours. There was a tour that took you through the old dungeons of Charleston, and through the graveyards and different places people have sighted ghosts. It’s not that I necessarily believe in ghosts, but it’s a different side of history – these aren’t the stories you read about in history books.
We decided to go on “The Dark Side of Charleston” tour. It was not a ghost tour, but it was ‘rated for mature audiences only’. Our tour started in a downpour that was over within 5 minutes, but it helped set the stage (“It was a dark and stormy night …”). Our tour guide showed us through downtown and the open market area. A family had donated about five huge open air market buildings to the city many years ago under the condition that the property would never be used to sell slaves.
Our tour guide also showed us where the red light district had been. He explained the politics behind it and how it had been established by the law enforcement and politicians of that day. He took us to the first whorehouse of Charleston. We were told some pretty comical stories about pimps hiding children under the floor so that while the john was being ‘entertained’ the children could quickly go through the john’s belongings and steal any extra cash or valuables he may have had with him.
There were “mattress girls” who carried straw mattresses on their back, like we carry backpacks, so their place of work was portable. A guy walking down the street who saw her could flick some money at her; she would set up shop right then and there and would get to work.
Our tour guide showed us where people were executed after being convicted in the court of marshal law and where they were executed after being convicted in a court of municipal law. There was an amazing intersection in town on which each corner there is a representation of the four areas of law: Federal, Municipal, Marshal and God’s law.
Many of the streets in Charleston are the original streets from when it was first built. The street where all of the slaves were sold is one such street. It is all cobblestones. It was painful to walk on. I can’t describe to you how eerie and dirty I felt standing there. Only a hundred and some odd years ago people were selling other humans right where I was standing.
Our last stop was a church. This was my favorite part of the whole tour. It was the first time that I wasn’t afraid of a graveyard, and ever since exploring it I haven’t been afraid.
The church was beautiful. The sky was a dark grey and was reflecting the city lights so it looked as if the clouds had their own glow. The church was round. Not round as in one big circular room, but more like a four- leaf clover type round. Apparently the church was built this way because people thought that the devil hides in corners.
I loved our tour. Once we were back in our room I immediately called my dad and told him every single story I could remember, every single detail that I had been holding onto just so I could recount our time to him.
I don’t know what happened on that tour, but I am convinced that something changed within me. Since we left Charleston I have had many sleepless nights. As a matter of fact I had one such night last night, which caused me to miss my 195a class this morning. I wake up in cold sweats terrified to open my eyes and terrified that if I don’t I will slowly drift back into another such dream.
The most terrifying I have had, which was so bad I woke myself up because I was crying, was about a little girl whose dad slaughtered her. She had managed to hang on so that she could haunt her old home and slaughtering anyone unfortunate enough to cross the threshold.
I remember that entire dream so intensely.
When I first walked into this old Victorian like building, there were these periwinkle blue, tiny flowers spinning on the floor as if they were floating on air. Like the air that was cradling them was slowly pulling them along making them dance just inches above the ground.
Just seconds later I’m filled with terror as I try and leave the house. I manage to make it out of the house, but now I am standing on this field at the bottom of a hill below the house. I can’t force myself to tear my eyes away from the house as I watch my friends being torn limb from limb by the ghost of a seven year old. Blood is spraying all over the glass windows as their screams fade.
What has left the most impact from that dream was the sudden flip from an image so beautiful and peaceful into something so horrid and miserable.
Usually my dreams involve zombies or something like them, which is what I dreamt about last night. However, it is not the creatures that make my dreams disturbing. It is how the people I am dreaming about handle the situations they find themselves in.
For example, more often than not, the people in my dreams are my immediate family, including myself. Last night, my mom knew that these bad people would be coming for us. There was something about a trip to Wall Mart. There was a huge earthquake at which point I ran away to find my boyfriend, because when I called his phone it said that I was trying to dial a Maryland number. (I don’t know so don’t ask). As we stood in my neighbor’s yard chatting it up about what had just happened, we watched a huge 747-with Halliburton written on its side fall apart as it was crashing. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in my room because strange noises were disturbing my sleep. For some reason there are at least 15 people congregated in my room. They all look possessed but blind as a bat. I manage to sneak out of my bed past them. Before I can leave the room though, I have to find something buried in my closet under a pile of shoes. I find it, though I’m not sure what “it” is, and lastly I play with the thermostat before leaving.
I run outside and tell my mom what has just happened. She’s still at the neighbor’s house acting like nothing unusual has just transpired. She says that she is going to go take a look and make sure that I wasn’t acting too hasty in my decision to arm the bomb that she had set up through out the house in our central air system.
Once she is inside the house, she calls me saying that I was wrong and everything is all right. She never gets the chance to explain to me who the hell those people were, because right then our house blows up.
In my dream, I am running around frantically as my big sis walks into my real room to wake me up and tell me that I have class in 15 minutes, I look at her and say no way in hell can I go to class.
Nope. I don’t function well after a night like that.
I know what you’re thinking, because I assure you I’m thinking the same thing at this moment, “that was ridiculous and not even close to a scary dream”. Yes, I see that now, but when I woke up in a cold sweat, that was not what was racing through my mind.
I wonder what it was that I heard or smelled, or saw in Charleston that woke up that part of my mind that enjoys scaring the crap out of me. I am convinced that whatever it is that is different about me changed in Charleston on that walking tour at midnight.
I wonder if that part of me will ever roll over and go back to sleep, so that I may again have a peaceful nights rest.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Frisco Here We Come!
One of my sisters and I have recently made the habit of traveling to San Francisco on Tuesday nights to attend Club NV. Despite our mid week outings, we don't feel like slackers because we neither one have early morning classes on Wednesday. However, after our past two trips to the City I am beginning to wonder if our weekly escapades are such a good idea.
Last week, we were awkwardly hit on by the man in the toll booth on the Bay Bridge. He creepily watched me stash my money back into my bra, which I guess I was asking for. We proceeded to get kicked out of the club because we insisted on drinking, despite the fact that neither of us are 21 yet. We stood outside of the club pondering what to do with the rest of our night and decided that the best course of action would be to drive to her hometown of Pleasanton and go swimming. Well, that didn't work out too well either as we took the wrong freeway exit off of the Bay Bridge and ended up, at 2:30 in the morning, lost in Richmond and on our way to Vallejo.
Finally, around 3:30 am, we made our way into her neighborhood only to discover that the pool was freezing. Since neither one of us were prepared for a nighttime dip in the community pool we chickened out and continued to have a parking lot party with two of her friends.
We eventually made it back home and into bed around 5:30. The entirety of my next day was spent being sick from eating food at Jack in the Crack.
My sister and I have been laughing at that trip ever since it happened. Unfortunately, this past Tuesday wins the most bizarre and unfortunate award.
We had spent the earlier part of our evening at a game of broomball with Sigma Nu. It was quite exciting. We have both discovered that we make funny noises when we get excited and go after the ball. The best part was when one of the guys knocked me over like a bowling pin and everyone started yelling, "girl down, girl down", all I could do was laugh hysterically.
As we were leaving the logitech ice rink my sister got a phone call from her friends, saying that they were in Frisco and that we should join them. We rushed back to our house to change and promptly drove up to the city.
If only the rest of our night had gone so smoothly.
We had just gotten onto 880, and we were right before the exit for the airport, when we realized there was a cop car behind us. My sister slowed down from 80mph to 70mph in the hope that that had been why they were behind us. To our amazement a few seconds later a second cop car got onto the freeway and rode next to the car behind us. We were both slightly freaked out but decided that since she had the cruise control on we were content to wait it out.
After a couple of miles she decided to pull over into the left lane to see if she was in their way. Nope, he followed us over. Shortly thereafter the car to his right put on his lights. However, he wasn't pulling us over. The lights were facing the cars behind him, as if warning them not to pass and to signal danger. By now, we were thoroughly freaked out and decided that the best course of action would be to get off the freeway and see what was going on.
At the next exit, well past Milpitas, we began to exit the freeway. It wasn't until we were going slower than 20mph that the cop behind us decided to put on his lights and siren. We pulled over, however, the exit didn't have much of a shoulder so the car was pretty much stopped in the lane. Cars continued to drive past us until one of the officers stopped his car in the second exit lane blocking them.
As we waited for someone to approach her car, I looked behind us and realized that there were at least 8 cop cars behind us, all with their lights flashing.
Two officers approached the car, one on each side. We rolled down our windows and my sister was instructed to turn off the car. With the lights of the cars glaring behind us they began to interrogate us.
They asked us only two questions.
The first officer asked us if they had attempted to pull us over earlier that evening. We replied no, and my friend told them that in fact she had never been pulled over before that moment. The second officer inquired as to whether or not we had seen a silver Toyota which looked similar to the car my sister drives. Mind you, my sister drives a silver Jetta Volkswagen. In case you have never compared the two cars, Jettas and Toyotas do not look alike.
We answered the officers inquireies. The two officers moved back behind our car and chatted for a moment, after which they promptly got into their cars and drove off.
We sat there in her turned off car wondering what the hell had just happened. Three of the cars left without a word as to why we had been pulled over, and without a word as to if it was OK for us to leave. As we sat there with the feeling of total bewilderment flooding our bodies, a fourth cop car drove up next to us with his window rolled down and proceeded to inform us that, "oh, by the way, you can leave".
We went to the next light to turn around. As the number of cop cars passing us rose we couldn't help but scream vulgarities at the top of our lungs. "What the fuck just happened?!"
Getting back onto the freeway half of the cars that had been behind us were pulled over on the side of the road and all of the officers were outside of their vehicles conversing.
The rest of our drive was spent making calls to our roommates, housemates, sisters, parents and so on trying to figure out what had just transpired.
We eventually made it to the city safe and sound, but slightly shaken.
The rest of the night was a complete waist. Club NV was ridiculous. They were playing techno until last call, at which point the DJ felt that Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" would be the most appropriate song.
It felt like we were back in middle school.
I will admit, I would much rather have a guy come ask me if I'd like to dance, rather than have that sweaty drunk guy who just assumes it's ok to dance with you walk up behind you and start grinding all up on you. Meanwhile, your girlfriend is making that "oh my god, no he's so gross" face at you. Then you have to keep protecting each other from the nasty men who think the only reason you came out that night is to let them grope your ass.
We ended up leaving out of frustration.
We laughed the whole way home about the weird drive up to San Francisco and the crapy time there.
Despite our two less than ideal trips to the City we have not been detered in our ambition to have a good time. As a matter of fact we are planning on making another trip up there tonight.
Hopefully all will work out tonight. If not, then maybe we need to try and find a new way to enjoy random nights with nothing to do.
Last week, we were awkwardly hit on by the man in the toll booth on the Bay Bridge. He creepily watched me stash my money back into my bra, which I guess I was asking for. We proceeded to get kicked out of the club because we insisted on drinking, despite the fact that neither of us are 21 yet. We stood outside of the club pondering what to do with the rest of our night and decided that the best course of action would be to drive to her hometown of Pleasanton and go swimming. Well, that didn't work out too well either as we took the wrong freeway exit off of the Bay Bridge and ended up, at 2:30 in the morning, lost in Richmond and on our way to Vallejo.
Finally, around 3:30 am, we made our way into her neighborhood only to discover that the pool was freezing. Since neither one of us were prepared for a nighttime dip in the community pool we chickened out and continued to have a parking lot party with two of her friends.
We eventually made it back home and into bed around 5:30. The entirety of my next day was spent being sick from eating food at Jack in the Crack.
My sister and I have been laughing at that trip ever since it happened. Unfortunately, this past Tuesday wins the most bizarre and unfortunate award.
We had spent the earlier part of our evening at a game of broomball with Sigma Nu. It was quite exciting. We have both discovered that we make funny noises when we get excited and go after the ball. The best part was when one of the guys knocked me over like a bowling pin and everyone started yelling, "girl down, girl down", all I could do was laugh hysterically.
As we were leaving the logitech ice rink my sister got a phone call from her friends, saying that they were in Frisco and that we should join them. We rushed back to our house to change and promptly drove up to the city.
If only the rest of our night had gone so smoothly.
We had just gotten onto 880, and we were right before the exit for the airport, when we realized there was a cop car behind us. My sister slowed down from 80mph to 70mph in the hope that that had been why they were behind us. To our amazement a few seconds later a second cop car got onto the freeway and rode next to the car behind us. We were both slightly freaked out but decided that since she had the cruise control on we were content to wait it out.
After a couple of miles she decided to pull over into the left lane to see if she was in their way. Nope, he followed us over. Shortly thereafter the car to his right put on his lights. However, he wasn't pulling us over. The lights were facing the cars behind him, as if warning them not to pass and to signal danger. By now, we were thoroughly freaked out and decided that the best course of action would be to get off the freeway and see what was going on.
At the next exit, well past Milpitas, we began to exit the freeway. It wasn't until we were going slower than 20mph that the cop behind us decided to put on his lights and siren. We pulled over, however, the exit didn't have much of a shoulder so the car was pretty much stopped in the lane. Cars continued to drive past us until one of the officers stopped his car in the second exit lane blocking them.
As we waited for someone to approach her car, I looked behind us and realized that there were at least 8 cop cars behind us, all with their lights flashing.
Two officers approached the car, one on each side. We rolled down our windows and my sister was instructed to turn off the car. With the lights of the cars glaring behind us they began to interrogate us.
They asked us only two questions.
The first officer asked us if they had attempted to pull us over earlier that evening. We replied no, and my friend told them that in fact she had never been pulled over before that moment. The second officer inquired as to whether or not we had seen a silver Toyota which looked similar to the car my sister drives. Mind you, my sister drives a silver Jetta Volkswagen. In case you have never compared the two cars, Jettas and Toyotas do not look alike.
We answered the officers inquireies. The two officers moved back behind our car and chatted for a moment, after which they promptly got into their cars and drove off.
We sat there in her turned off car wondering what the hell had just happened. Three of the cars left without a word as to why we had been pulled over, and without a word as to if it was OK for us to leave. As we sat there with the feeling of total bewilderment flooding our bodies, a fourth cop car drove up next to us with his window rolled down and proceeded to inform us that, "oh, by the way, you can leave".
We went to the next light to turn around. As the number of cop cars passing us rose we couldn't help but scream vulgarities at the top of our lungs. "What the fuck just happened?!"
Getting back onto the freeway half of the cars that had been behind us were pulled over on the side of the road and all of the officers were outside of their vehicles conversing.
The rest of our drive was spent making calls to our roommates, housemates, sisters, parents and so on trying to figure out what had just transpired.
We eventually made it to the city safe and sound, but slightly shaken.
The rest of the night was a complete waist. Club NV was ridiculous. They were playing techno until last call, at which point the DJ felt that Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" would be the most appropriate song.
It felt like we were back in middle school.
I will admit, I would much rather have a guy come ask me if I'd like to dance, rather than have that sweaty drunk guy who just assumes it's ok to dance with you walk up behind you and start grinding all up on you. Meanwhile, your girlfriend is making that "oh my god, no he's so gross" face at you. Then you have to keep protecting each other from the nasty men who think the only reason you came out that night is to let them grope your ass.
We ended up leaving out of frustration.
We laughed the whole way home about the weird drive up to San Francisco and the crapy time there.
Despite our two less than ideal trips to the City we have not been detered in our ambition to have a good time. As a matter of fact we are planning on making another trip up there tonight.
Hopefully all will work out tonight. If not, then maybe we need to try and find a new way to enjoy random nights with nothing to do.
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