The Sunshine State: Winter, Spring, and Summer 2005

Winter
Upon my return to Orlando from Switzerland I promptly got busy and landed a sweet internship in a language school, ASPECT ILA, at my university. I was only taking one class to finish up my bachelor’s degree, so I was working there 5 days a week. After only two weeks of observing classes, one of the teachers quit and I was thrown to the lions. I had no experience what so ever and zero desire to teach a class of 10 low-intermediates, but that was it and I chose to float, not sink. So there I was, planning and grading and lecturing for these people who paid a whole hell of a lot to come to the US to learn English. Man, they got ripped off. I had a friendly relationship with a few teachers there and my direct boss, Nicole, but after a few weeks I knew there would be future problems with one teacher. He was a Douche. The class finished up after 4 weeks and at that point I was relegated to menial duties, such as organizing the school library and ensuring that copies were made of all the school’s audio cassettes. Snooze.



From the very beginning I started chilling with some of the students, because a lot of them were my age or a little older. My first friend was Sylvain, a French dude that loved basketball and that’s what we did; played ball. He was pretty good. From chilling with him I met Isa, Akira, and Asli. They were the original core of friends. Later came Miho ‘the Huus,’ whom I eventually courted as my girlfriend, Brazilian Ricky, and Acco. I spent a lot of time with those guys, along with the normal partying with Matt, Iowa, and Eric. I probably spent too much time with them, because word got around and that created a huge rift with the previously mentioned ‘Douche.’ I was fired.

Spring
So now that I was out of my internship I had time to focus and finish up my projects for what was the final class of my college career. The class was cool, but it was also a bit a pain in the ass. It was a ‘TESOL for grades 1-12’ course, so there were lots of current public school teachers enrolled in it for recertification which made for a load of fake enthusiasm. Nothing much happened for a month or two.

Graduation: May 2005
It was a spectacular thing, although I don’t remember much because all the gang had an all-night binge the night before. I woke up really drunk about an hour before my dad and sis were to arrive and knew it was going to be a marvelous day. I thought there would be some miraculous change inside my head after the dean put the diploma in my hand, but nothing happened. No spark, no bang. What a waste of 5 years. Just kidding, it felt great. Iowa went on vacation to Aruba the next day and I had the place to myself for the week. The parties started and summer had begun.


Summer
After Iowa came back we sat on the couch for about 3 weeks playing 31 and drinking 32s of Olde English while watching day time TV then Malcolm in the Middle and Seinfeld. Around the same time Gabriel informed me that he was coming and living with me me for 6 weeks during summer. Off the bat I knew it was going to be a kick ass summer. Miho and I were hanging out more and I was nursing a huge crush on her (she is such an upbeat individual and has knack for art; she is super). She had recently broken up with another one of my friends, Isa, after his return to Turkey. Anyway, Gabriel arrived and we had a huge, kick off, kick ass party. That’s what that summer was really; a huge, kick off, kick ass party to start my life after university and we did party, almost every day. I decided when Gabriel departed back for the hills of Switzerland I was going back with him to try my hand there for a fourth time. I also was ‘rehired’ (I found out that I had never really been fired) by ASPECT to chaperone a kids group from Columbia on after school activities. They were a hand full, but pretty cool. They were pissed because ASPECT fucked them, just like some many others, but they were cool with me, so it was easy money. That’s the only real work I did that summer. Our routine was as follows: wake up at whatever time; some days head for the beach and others play basketball; get some sun; hit the gym; hit the pool; catch more rays; get showered up; then host/find a party. It will probably go down as one of the most laid back and memorable summers of my life. Iowa left Orlando in mid July headed for San Francisco via Arkansas and Miho and Ricky moved into the apartment. At one point there were 6 people living in there I think. So many great friends were made during those scorching days and hot nights. There are more picture here.

Miho and I finally got together and I asked her to come to Switzerland with me. She was down and we headed for Zürich on a Continental flight in early August.