Lessons learned from celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Berkeley and San Francisco last night:
1. I always thought green beer was festive and fun. But in reality, it looks quite unappetizing. Some kind of psychological thing, probably. Plus, it look like slime. On a side note, thank you bartender girl at Bear’s Lair for dying our amber ale green, even though it was already pretty dark.
2. To the super friendly restaurant owner who let us use your bathroom, no questions asked and without buying any food, you are awesome. It was unexpected, but greatly appreciated. Couldn’t find a single bathroom anywhere when you came to the rescue. Never had to pee so badly in my life…
3. Partying in an alley way (The Irish Bank Bar and Restaurant) with a DJ spinning techno, pop, and classic rock felt like another world, especially with a dude swaying a giant Irish flag on stage. Emily, next year, we will wave that flag. Also, random lady who spontaneously crashed our chill circle, thanks for getting us going.
4. Going down a slide to get to the dance floor at a club (Slide) brings back memories of childhood. Ears still ringing from the music though…
5. Bar-hopping and party-hopping with old and new friends alike? So much fun! Gotta do it again soon, Jimmy, Emily, and Mimi :)
Rhythm is an amazing thing. You can see it in most everything we do too.
Ever since my cross country days in high school, I’ve always thought the worst thing in long distance running is breaking rhythm. It takes a little while to get those legs in rhythm, but once you do, it’s like you’re floating on the ground and can seemingly run forever. But when you have to suddenly break rhythm because of some obstacle, the legs get heavy and you have to start all over again.
Same goes for music. I’m sure there’s been many times where you’re just closing your eyes and rocking out to a sweet jam (headphones or not). It feels almost as if you’re in another world, with the sound waves and beats just coursing through you. You are in sync (haha pardon the pun). But then all of a sudden, someone bumps into you and you fall out of the music, back to reality.
There’s just a beautiful movement to rhythm, in nature, in people, and in life.
Move to the beat. Keep that rhythm flowing.
I really like my name, Stanley.
Not really sure why. It’s just hard to imagine myself named anything else.
When I was younger, I liked my name because it wasn’t very common. I guess that made me unique in a way. I never had any classmate Stanleys up until college actually.
I also thought it gave off a vibrant tone. At least to me, I thought “Stanley” sounded lively when said out loud. Maybe it was the personality I sought. I mean, I was very shy back then, but really wanted to be more expressive.
I’ve also gone through my fair share of nicknames, some better than others. Stan the Man. Stanley the Manly. Squan. Even dabbled with Stan for a while. But I’ve always come back to good ol’ Stanley.
Having grown from everything though, I think the name Stanley has just become part of me. And because of that, it’s so hard to imagine otherwise. Anything else just wouldn’t feel right.
As I walked out of class just now, I was about 15 feet behind these two girls. I was kind of in my own zone and not really paying attention, but all of sudden, a pair of sunglasses dropped to the ground. It made sense that it came from one of their bags, but I wasn’t sure.
People around me probably saw too, but no one did anything, so I picked them up, jogged over to the girls and asked if either of them had dropped the sunglasses. One of the girls lit up in surprise and enthusiastically replied, “Oh my god! Thank you so much!” and I gave her the shades.
She had been talking on the phone, and as I walked away, I overheard her continue to express her gratitude by telling the person on the other line how happy she was that someone had picked up her sunglasses and returned them.
It was such a small occurrence that lasted maybe five seconds, but seeing her happiness made my day. I think it was the way she expressed it mostly. I had done her a favor, but she returned it right back.
I know if someone found my dropped sunglasses, I probably wouldn’t respond as enthusastically. But after today’s experience, maybe I should.
Keenan Cahill is known to many as that strange kid who lip syncs on YouTube. But not many know his story and his battle with MPS-VI.
Here it is:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCLC87zFTac
Keenan is only 15, but has a very rare genetic disorder that affects 1 in every 500,000 individuals and there is no cure. He has already had ten surgeries so far and each Thursday, he gets treated with a four-hour long enzyme infusion at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital to halt the progression of the disease.
With his YouTube videos (originally all filmed in his room) having millions of views and his popularity garnering the interest of famous musical artists and celebrities, Keenan is living a teenage dream.
Though hereceives some hurtful comments on his YouTube videos, he tries to ignore them and uses friendships he’s made at the children’s hospital to motivate him. Keenan loves being in front of the camera and just simply loves what he does.