turkey day

for my thanksgiving i traveled up to lutherville close to baltimore. this year we had thanksgiving at my uncles house. this has been the tradition in my family for as long as i can remember. we might have had it at my house one year, and we have definitely had christmas celebrations at my house at least a couple times. but usually its always at my uncle's house. the house is great for family gatherings because it firstly is large, secondly because it contains many things that entertain little kids (like me and my brother when we were younger, or my cousin's children), and thirdly because he has the most comfy couch that i have ever sat upon. this couch is so comfy that after a long meal, you just sit down and pass out in front of the tv and the fireplace. nothing could be more relaxing. over the years, something has always occurred that has caused me to not enjoy thanksgiving. one year i spilled orange juice on myself, another year i had diarrhea, and another year i got sick to my stomach after spending too much time in an outdoor hot tub when it was 15 degrees outside. this year went very smoothly. no illnesses whatsoever, and i was able to finish all my food, which usually doesn't happen. usually my eyes are bigger than my stomach and i leave the table having only eaten three quarters of my food. this year i had a plan of attack. i ate all the turkey first because thats what usually fills me up. its harder to finish the turkey if you have already eaten some stuffing and beans. after the turkey i ate all the potatoes, beans, corn, stuffing, and bread. in using this coordinated plan of attack i managed to put away two mountainous plates of food, in addition to consuming a whole plate of apple crisp, pumpkin pie, and ice-cream. yup, this was the best thanksgiving meal i have eaten in a while. thats why turkey day is my most favorite holiday...good food and lots of it.

happy munching

ersin

put out the fire

im loving the free time provided by the thanksgiving break. since i don't have any work to do this week i have oodles of free time. thats right i said oodles. i can do that cuz its my blog. today i after finishing up my last class at 2 o'clock i headed over to the recreation center to play a little basketball and then lift with my buddy jamil. i played a little before he arrived, but once he arrived he wanted to play also. he is slowly but surely recovering from knee surgury and has just been cleared to jog so you can imagine how excited he is to get out and run around. so we ended up playing 4 or 5 games of basketball in a row. it was awesome because we never seemed to leave the court. i was pushing myself and dousing everyone as i made it shower(aka i scored a lot). all the lifting i have done over the summer and this first semester is paying off. i have been able to jump up, absorb contact like nothing happened, and score the basket. also since i have been running suicides and doing other sorts of sprints and cardio training, i am in great shape and im able to run non stop and beat everyone up and down the court, pushing myself to the limit. i stopped playing because my legs began to cramp, which means the tank was empty. after that i enjoyed a nice raspberry smoothie and chilled out watching some tv. i still have no work to get done so im gonna chill and watch some monday night football. i hope everyone is enjoying these final days of school as much as i am.

be easy

ersin

this weekend chiiiiillll

this weekend was real chill. thats the best way to describe it. it was chill as in it was cold as hell outside, but it was also chill as in a got my work done early and just took it easy for the rest of the time. on saturday morning i cranked out the rest of my english paper, leaving only the bibliography and other minor aspects remaining for sunday. knowing that sunday would be a breeze, saturday night i went to a frat with a few of my friends. i went 8-0 in bp, finally proving to my friends that i kick ass in bp. im so good because im a good shooter in basketball and the same arm motion translates to bp. of course this was after the florida state game which was a huge waste of time. at least i wasn't cold; i was wearing a shirt, two layers of under armor, a jacket, and then a long sleeve black shirt over my jacket. i also sported some gloves and two layers of pants. i could have been out there all night, but was so disgusted at our performance in the game that i left. today (sunday) i worked out for an hour in the morning before breakfast. then i chilled all day watching football while finishing my bibliography and listening to my music. hopefully after today i will be rested because i literally took today off. its smooth sailing till thanksgiving for me. i just have to print and turn in my paper and then i'll be done.

chill out

ers

almost there

only a week and a couple days to go until thanksgiving break!!! im so excited for this little break, not just because i get to go home( i have done that enough already) but because i get to eat good food thats not going to cost me a fortune or kill my diner points. seriously, the diner points here are ridiculous as i have already discussed and analyzed in past blog posts. the best part about this thanksgiving could truly be that i don't have to worry about my meal plan for a little while. ill be running out soon so anything that i can do to prolong that unfortunate day is a good thing. as usual, im going to be the most lazy person i can possible be on thanksgiving. i just need a ton of food, and a big tv to watch football on. im traveling to my uncles house in the baltimore area this year. this has been the tradition as long as i can remember. i really hope my whole family can make it up because its way more fun with a large crowd. there is a small downside though. im positive that i will get bombarded with college questions from each of my relatives. ill probable spend most of the time answering questions instead of watching the football. thats going to be really frustrating. but overall it'll be really nice to be away from school for more that a day. i also get to look forward to seeing how i compare with my uncle and cousin. they are both 6 foot 8, just a little taller than me, and they both have around 70 pounds on me. so every time i show up im always greeted with, "whats up short stuff", or "string bean". ill still be a little smaller because i have successfully avoided the freshman fifteen. whatever happens it will be a thanksgiving to remember, thats for sure.

ersin

oops my bad

i goofed big time this weekend. i had a little schedule mix up and ended up not doing either of the two activities that i had hoped to part-take in this weekend. mistake number one: i thought my club basketball game was today (saturday) at 3:30. mistake number two: thinking that the UNC game was at 1:30. okay number one is really the only mistake; number two was just a little slip up that didn't really mess anything up. heres what went down. i canceled my UNC ticket because i thought that i would be at a basketball game instead. so i arrived at school and began to get ready to go to the SPH building for my game, when i ran into my friend joey. i said i was off to the game and he said that he heard it was on sunday. sure enough i checked my schedule and found that he was correct. there were three problems with this. i left home early today so that i would be back for the game. i haven't been home in a month so instead of staying saturday night and enjoying a home cooked meal, i get diner food. second, i completely wasted the opportunity of watching the UNC game; a game that i had my eye on watching since september. third, i was in game mode. i was so focused, and pumped for the game, and then it was all for nothing. so i had all this energy just waiting to explode but i had to hold it in and take a seat on the couch and watch the UNC game, while doing homework. so today pretty much turned out to be quite un-productive, but i did have some fun with my friends on my floor in the process.

my B

ersin

new kicks

i im so excited. last friday i finally received my long awaited birthday present in the mail. you're probable thinking, "gee thats kind of late" because my birthday was september 24th. i just wasn't sure about what i wanted for my birthday on my birthday so it took me a few weeks till i finally realized what i wanted/needed. I really needed a new pair of basketball shoes. the shoes that i currently had were the team shoes from my senior varsity basketball season in highschool. they were a good design, good color, and lightweight, but they were worn out. the soles were coming off and there was a gaping hole in the back of the heel. i new that i wanted a solid pair of shoes that would look really cool, be lightweight, and also be high quality, so it would last at least a few years. i went on nike.com and searched through the basketball shoes. i found the pair i wanted and noticed that i was able to customize the shoes to my exact preferences. so i fooled around on the computer until i came up with this killer design. they were black red and white to match maryland's colors. i was even able to write my nickname and jersey number on them. i quickly ordered them. the website said that they would arrive in the mail approximately 30 days after i ordered them. that sounded like such a long time, but they actually came in 21 days, which pleased me. the shoes are even cooler when they are in your hands(or on your feet). i love them, and hopefully they last a long time. 

Ersin

prices suck at UMD

i haven't been home for a while. usually thats where i do my laundry because i don't feel like paying to clean my clothes. it just doesn't make sense that we have to pay to use the laudry machines. we don't pay for the utilities that we use in our rooms and bathrooms. think about it, if everyone just left all the lights and electronics in their rooms on, all day every day, and left the water running, and took hour long showers, we still wouldn't have to pay for it. that would be incredibly costly to the school. but people only do their laudry once in a while and it uses far less water and electricity than all or our other dorm activities. we should be charged for our personal utilities use in our own rooms before we are charged to do laundry. not that i think that we should be charged for either. its just ridiculous. 

this kind of adds on to my frustration with the food pricing on campus. in general, we get charged for every little thing that we do, whether it is laundry of food. we get charged 55 cents for putting cheese on a sandwich. honestly, who gives a shit. cheese is just an essential part of any sandwich, why do we get charged for it? they might as well charge for the lettuce too. i noticed one morning that a single tiny piece of sausage costed $1.50. this isn't the top of the line sausage either, its the crappy diner sausage made in bulk. i could get three bags of food from a vending machine for that price. whoever makes the pricing scheme here is really cheapa and  probably thinks that students will disregard the 55 cents, but over a semester that adds up, in addition to paying for takeout which costs 25 cents. and we don't even get a choice sometimes. getting takeout is mandatory during certain hours of the day. it also seems as though prices have gone up from last year. my friend who is in his second year here has verified this and said that last year, almost everyone was above the certain cutoff checkpoints that your meal plan goes by. this year almost everyone is below the cutoff. 

one more question. why are the prices of food still high? its understandable that the prices are high because gas prices are high, which cause the price of shipping to go up, etc. but the price of gas is approximately half of what it was and the end of august. why haven't the prices of our food gone down. the people running the dining services are inflating prices and disregarding national norms. all of my friends from other colleges say that they pay 6 bucks a meal and can get whatever they want, and as much as they want. here 6 bucks gets me one small meal, and leaves me hungry and dissatisfied after i have finished eating. this needs to change. not that im fat or anything but i don't get enough food. students shouldn't be left feeling hungry after a meal. the point of eating is to satisfy hunger, and if you can't do that then something isn't right

club bball tournament

i already mentioned that last weekend the club basketball team took a trip out to william and mary for a basketball tournament. i thought it was only a three team tournament, but there were more. it was maryland, radford, uva, georgetown, william and mary, and one other team (i don't know the name because their jerseys were plain). so it was a lot more exciting than a had expected. actually i never realized it but william and mary is really close to some golf courses that i played on for vacation a couple times, so i was able to recognize where we were as we got close to the school. anyway, we played two games and we won both. both wins were pretty decisive. in the first game we beat radford by 20+ points, and in the second game we beat georgetown by 10 points. i know a ten point game doesn't sound decisive, but we were leading by 20 points late in the game and our coach pulled the starters, allowing the other team to make a game out of it. personally i played the best two games i have played all season. i scored 16 points and 12 points in the first and second games respectively. i simply wasn't missing many shots, and as i got more confident and excited to be playing, i stopped realizing that i was tired. it was almost like i was running on adrenaline. even though i should have felt really tired, i was enjoying the game so much that i didn't notice, and was able to continue playing 100%. our team was fired up for this tournament. after losing 2 out of the 3 games at princeton, we made sure that we played hard this time around. we didn't want to drive 3 hours back to college park disappointed. all in all, nothing could have made the trip any better. i even got to hang out with a highschool friend, who attends william and mary, in between my games. as of now the club basketball team is 5-2, an legit winning record. we have another tournament coming up next weekend!

BALLIN!

ersin

are you ready for some football

this monday night i will be going to the redskins game against the steelers. it is a monday night game which is a huge deal. i have never been able to go to any previous monday night games that the redskins played in because my mom would never let me go. but now im in college and i can do whatever i want so i can go! im going to watch it with my dad. we have season tickets for the redskins, but we never go to many games. we don't find it worth the time to go to redskins game just to see them play pathetic football. usually going to a nfl game takes a lot of time. you have to account for the time you will spend sitting in traffic, going both to and from the game, and the game itself is three to four hours. the beauty of this football game is that no driving will be involved for me. im simply hopping onto the metro and getting off at the stop right by fedex field. then is only a three quarter mile walk to the stadium and im set. hopefully it won't be too cold. we have had great weather over the past few days but you never know whats going to happen. as long as it doesn't rain or snow i can always bundle up. this year the redskins are playing really well so its worth the time to go watch them play. im really looking forward to it, and im going to have a blast!