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It’s finally started. The construction in the new IUSTV Read office is done, and we’re beginning to move our stuff from Ashton to Read. We got the keys Wednesday afternoon. The next few weeks are going to be hectic and a pain in the ass, but once we’re done, it’s going to be AWESOME.

I’ve had a very relaxing weekend. After playing Budokai 3 for hours yesterday, doing minimal IUSTV work, and sitting at my apartment for the past five hours either watching TV, playing video games, or internet-ing, I seriously thought that I had nothing to do tomorrow. I don’t have class until 2:30 tomorrow, don’t have any interviews in the morning, nothing. Totally free evening and day.

WRONG.

I just discovered that the term paper I thought was due on Wednesday is, instead, due TOMORROW by 4PM. I’ll be able to finish it no problem, but I won’t be sleeping much tonight and I’m not going to be a happy camper tomorrow evening. It’s funny (kinda), because I’m looking over the directions right now and on the page my Prof labeled “THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES,” number one is “Procrastination – attempting to research and prepare the paper over a long weekend – the paper will show it, and it will effect your grade.” Haha, time to introduce him to the world of Anthony Leong papers. I’m not doing this over the weekend anyway. 頑張るぞ。

So ya, this past weekend was definitely one of the best I’ve had all year. What was it, you ask? Why, the A-TEAM TURN-A HALLOWEEN WEEKEND REUNION. That’s right, a bunch of us from the IES Tokyo program finally got together again to party. A good majority of the original A-Team was present: me, Seth, Ari, Bryan, and Trevor. So not everyone, but a good number of people got to hang out together again, this time in America. Kelly and Fatla also came from out of town, and then add them to Brian and Nick here at IU, it’s an A-Team bonanza. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any surprise Huston or Ichikawa visits, although at Pat’s party there was a fake Ben Huston look alike.

I left Bloomington on Friday morning to pick up Ari from the airport in Indy; got lost in town for a bit, but finally got back in time to get some Charreada for lunch. An IUSTV meeting later and some Halloween shopping, next thing you know it everyone is at my place in the evening. Trey flew in from California, and everyone else drove in. We went to CB for dinner (cheap tabehoudai), Big Red, and then big party at Pat’s that night. Quick rundown of costumes, even though you will see pics: I was the Devil, Seth and Bryan were army guys (Snake?!), Trey was a bear (sweet costume; huge), Ari was a lazy ghost/Tiger Mask ghost, Kelly was a Chinese lady (uhh), Fatla was…I dunno but he had a leisure suit on. What the hell were you Fatla? Nick wore his coat, Blanchard was a pirate, and Ho wore the fro wig. All in all some quality costumes, so it was off to Pat’s party, which turned out really sweet. It’s a small house and it was cold outside, but all in all, a great time. Pat was dressed as Billy Idol, and there were so many people at the party that I couldn’t name them all if I tried. Fake Huston was there, and apparently a stalker or something.

Also worth mentioning is that Ari decided to start throwing bottles from the neighbor’s recycling bin into the street, Bryan said “beer will be my jacket,” and Fatla thought someone drank some of his whiskey. Yoko, some guy, and 2 cute Japanese girls also showed up a bit later; fun times. We all ended up going to the Steak that night, which was interested, because pretty much everyone there was drunk and/or wearing costumes. Highlight of the crowd was a big guy dressed as Mary Poppins or something, and when he stood up this one guy near our table yells out “That’s a huge bitch!” Classy. I managed to get everyone to fit somewhere to sleep at my place (7 people including me), and Nick housed the three Japanese girls.

Woke up the next day somewhat early, and we all went to Mother Bear’s for pizza. I actually hadn’t been there in a long time, and it was awesome. Then took them on a tour of campus since it was a nice day, and we chilled near Memorial Hall then in the Union. Seriously, it was good times just catching up with everyone. As Seth put it the other day “we own. and seriously i think we laughed for like 48 hours straight this wknd.” The jokes just keep flowing with all of us; we’re awesome in any country. It made me realize that Japan wouldn’t have been as fun last year without this kind of people there to be assholes with me. If it would have been just me and some scabes, I probably would have ended up not going back this past summer, and everything would have been much different. So anyways, we went to Bombay House for dinner. It was good; we sat and made jokes all night. Then Fatla bombed the toilet and we had to get outta there. Also of note, the menu there lists desserts as “Happy Endings.” Uhh…

As pathetic as it sounds, we didn’t go out Saturday night. Trey did, but not with us. Haha. We pretty much sat at my house watching TV and all passed out before 2AM. Oh well; we were too tired from being awesome (plus Seth hadn’t slept in the past 2 days I think, with driving and stuff). We woke up the next day pretty early again, and I was planning on taking everyone to Tudor Room for brunch. Luckily, Nick did some calling beforehand and we found out that the place was booked. So Nick found this place called Chapman’s that was also a brunch buffet and actually pretty good. It was cheaper than TR and had more stuff (maybe), so I think we found a new brunch place. We got our own little room (maybe a “breakfast nook”?), among a restaurant semi-full of old people. It was good to sit and joke again. Seriously, we made so many jokes that weekend that they could have recorded them and made a TV show.

Before we left, we took a group picture. In my old Japan trick, I asked the waitress to help us, not with taking the picture, but actually getting in it with us. We are awesome. So that was that; we went back to my place, Seth, Kelly, an Fatla left first. Trey went out to visit his new Indiana friend while me, Bryan, Brian, Nick, and Ari stayed at my place to play Dragonball Z Budokai 3 (which is surprisingly good). Trey came back, they left, and that was it. Seriously, a great weekend in all. A-Team is awesome. We’re going to have to have more get-togethers like this later on, which I hope can happen. It wasn’t just us being in Japan that made us awesome, we’re global, bitch (Seth also uses that excuse to not tip anywhere).

Jet.