the normal heart

if you haven't seen the HBO Movie, The Normal Heart, then you need to check it out. it just recently came out this past May and hosts a great cast (with Matt Bomer)! great film that gets real heavy quickly.



also, i got the privilege to finally meet 2 bloggers in person that i've kept up with for years now. one doesn't blog anymore but the other is madmanMD - both were awesome guys and we had a good time hanging out.

the west coast is the best coast

since my last post, a lot has changed; i've graduated with an undergraduate and master degree, i've moved across country, i've started my first job in the corporate world, and on top of everything,  i'm absolutely loving the west coast. it took a while getting settled into my new spot but it is all complete and i couldn't be happier. a quick 3 minute walk to the beach or a 5 minute walk to the bars isn't something i can complain about.

on the downside, i dont have any exciting hookup stories to talk about. living alone, i should of probably put myself out there a bit more than i have but i'm just too conservative. the first 6 weeks while being out here, my best friend (the basketball player), was in a city about 20 minutes away training before finding a team to play overseas so every weekend and almost all weeknights, i kicked it with him and his wife. had some awesome times and it was good to spend time with him since it's been so long. then the week after they left, my whole fam came out here for the 4th. it was a blast showing them around and doing the tourist stuff in the city.

this past weekend, i went to San Diego Pride which was cool - missed the parade but did make it to the festival which was cool. its awesome seeing gay people just being themselves even though some of the actions/dress might be a bit extravagant haha i stayed with an old teammate that lives there and he actually lives with two gay guys. the two gays were awesome and very different. one was feminine and acted (and looked) like Cam from Modern Family while the other was a black guy who was very masculine and isn't out to his family back home. it was an interesting dynamic with them being so different but it was a good time. i'll def make the trip back there soon.

thats about it for now. hope everyone is doing well. below are some pics for yall to enjoy.

 the bike path i could take to work.

 everyone here rides singled speed bikes aka fixies - so had to get one. this one is mine. 

 went to my first major league game ever - Dodger Stadium

 thought it was a cool shot - night and day together.

 my favorite trees now.

'marry me' vid

first off, i want to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post - i see every comment and really appreciate all the love i got.

secondly, i saw this video on madmanMD's blog and thought it was awesome. it's weird though because i can't even relate. i've been living in a shell far too long (due to my school being in the middle of nowhere) and haven't experienced these types of emotions yet. i want to and hope to - so possibly moving across country to live in an actual city, it might happen...enjoy.

marry me from elvisdifazio on Vimeo.

i'm making BIG moves!

well...all my hours of playing soccer growing up has finally paid off. it has rewarded me with the opportunity to go to college and gain an education, which i have somewhat done (haha).

i will graduate in May with both an undergrad degree in financial planning and a masters in business administration - by June 1st, i will be working.

yesterday i received a job offer from a bank that i interviewed with just this past Tuesday and today o got the final acceptance letter with all the details. i got the location that i wanted out of the 6 available cities and its nowhere near where i am right now. in fact, its the complete opposite. on the west coast in near southern California!!

i'm so pumped and i can't wait to move out there. its gonna be a crazy end to my 5th year here at school.

it's somewhat bittersweet though because just yesterday when i called my mom to tell her, she was crying. not really tears of joy either - more of sadness and pain being that i wont be returning home like she planned. my two older siblings moved back home after graduation for a few months before starting their careers. my mom hoped the same for me. it hurt and i was way sad when i hung up the phone.

today, she is more relaxed and understands its something i want. i need a bigger location with a more west coast type of mind. she is most def gonna be visiting and is becoming more excited for me which feels good.

so yeah...thought i would share that tiny bit of information for the day. haha

i've got a gay family member.

in (somewhat) recent news, i found out that my cousin is a lesbian. the reason why i say somewhat is because i have always had a suspicion for a while. growing up she has always been more tom-boyish and she even gave the 'being a cop' thing a go. it is just up until recently that she literally has tweeted every emotion possible with one particular girl to favorite each tweet. simple detective duties - i went to the girls twitter and notice that her tweets were similar of those like my cousin who favorited her stuff.

this news wasn't publicized to my family either. it was through my aunt  (my moms sister and also sister to my aunt with the lesbian daughter who this post is about), who cemented the rumor...

this might get confusing:

but my mom called my aunt (mother of gay daughter) a few days ago to see how things were. she wanted to pick her brain about how she is feeling with the sort of new news that she learned about her daughter. its been almost 4 years since i told my mom (holy shit - i cant believe its been that long) so my mom is doing much-much better with the whole thing. she just wanted to help my aunt out a bit.

while on the phone, she pulled out my letter that i wrote to her explaining my situation. when reading it, she started crying on the phone and apparently so did my aunt. she paused at the last line and struggled for a few minutes to get it out. my mom is an emotional lady and i love her so much. i cant remember exactly what the last line read, and she even called me to tell me this and read the line to me and got chocked up. it was something along the lines of "i'm sorry for being like this but i hope you still love me." she couldn't believe i wrote that and felt so bad that i had those thoughts in my mind - that my parents wouldn't love me because of something so small.

at the time before coming out, it is how i felt and was so unsure of what might happen. my mom tells me all the time that she feels terrible for kids whose parents dont accept them. and personally, so do i. i couldnt imagine parents who wouldn't accept their kids over being gay.

anyways, in the end. more family of mine knows now and they are super cool with it. i fb'd messaged my cousin (the lesbian) and her brother about it saying that its cool they know and that its awesome that its out in the open now. my cousin the guy, goes to Mizzou so we talked about the Michael Sam thing as well. his frat is putting up a huge banner saying how they are supportive of him which is mad cool.

so yeah, i have a gay cousin now - it's pretty cool i guess. haha

and i really hope Michael Sam gets drafted cause that would be massive for acceptance.

new blog to check out

someone is back to blogging that has been out of the game for a while. he was the initial reason why i started to blog actually. it was my freshman year of college i found his online story of dealing with being gay and playing soccer which i could relate to. he was nice enough to talk me and give me advice when i needed it.

this guy is named Greg - and honestly, i dont even remember his original blog name (sorry about that) but his blog is up and running. its about his journey traveling the world and living in many different countries with many different ideas. i'm sure it will be just as interesting as his first so check it out and show some love.

Peg Leg Greg

Looking

first off - Happy belated Thanksgiving... Merry belated Christmas... and hope you all have a wonderful start to the New Year!!

my plans for New Years Eve is that we are going to the Uptown area of Dallas where are all the bars are located with my group of friends from high school with a pregame at the Ritz Carlton! one of my buddies moms hooked it up and booked a suite there for us which will be way sick.

i do have quite a bit that i havent informed yall as of lately but i'm doing extremely well. being out to (almost) all my friends back home has been a great experience. i even went to a gay bar with a couple of them and they all loved it. also, a friend of mine in law school here in Dallas introduced me to a guy in her study group which has been beneficial haha he is really cool, easy to talk to and even came out with my group of high school friends. just kind of sucks i leave to head back to school in less than a week... but i will try to update yall later about the details of everything else.

i wanted to show y'all these trailers of an upcoming HBO series - its about gay guys. i mean, i'll for sure watch it and see what its all about.

trailer #1:


trailer #2:

coming out of closets

sorry for all the videos i've posted lately but i feel like they are all so important and meaningful. here is another that is making its rounds across the internet. a teammate actually sent this to me which was pretty cool.



1) be authentic
2) be direct
3) be unapologetic

this is cool.

check this wedding.

Brad & Luke: 5.11.13 from Collin Del Cuore on Vimeo.

also, i have a post that i've sort of written but not done and have been to lazy to write it all - its about me telling a teammate a week ago.

anyways, my mom and sis fly in tonight and are hanging with me the whole weekend which im pumped for. hope yall have a good weekend though. 

check this.

here is a movie trailer that my buddy on the team sent me saying i would probably like to see when it's released - and he is probably right. i think its awesome gay topics are becoming more mainstream without the typical 'gay' connotation that is normally associated with it. it does look a bit cheesy but i'll def still see it.




this clip is about a month old but i think it's great. its an Australian government member sticking up for his beliefs in order to get reelected (i think)



i dont remember where i saw this but i thought it was pretty funny - i think our society might come to this if 'samesies' continues to grow...



here is another gay song that i guess is making its way around the internet. song is okay but i'm more interested in the guys in the video




hope everyone is doing well. i'm still suffocating from school and soccer - but i did manage to make it out to the Raleigh pride parade this past weekend since we didnt have a game. it was cool and i'll post some pics next time if i remember.

adios!

oh - and i turned 23 since my last post...fuck i'm gettin old. 

final year of school

school is back in session and i'm already struggling. taking 18 hours with 4 of my 6 classes being grad classes and working as the soccer team's graduate-assistant coach is a little bit more difficult than i anticipated. i'm literally in class, on the field, or studying - its crazy right now. thankfully, i have only about 9 more months of it. haha

not much else is new though. i'm still single, gay, and somewhat on the brink of out and closeted.

i do though, have a real life gay friend now. a kid in my major came out to me 2 weeks ago. he is one that i highly suspected of being gay before he told me and it's pretty obvious to everyone but its just unspoken. of course i didnt mind and its kind of cool to have someone who understands everything. we've talked a few times about it all and we have similar views about the whole gay thing. something that came up during our last talk was that apparently he knew about me before i told him (and i actually just told him about a month ago during summer when i visited him in atlanta).

i guess i would of thought that the people that i told wouldnt be so open about my secret. apparently a girl that i told, ended up telling others and around my school, things spread pretty quickly. i found out that a good amount of people that i dont even know, know about me now. at first when my gay friend told me this, i was upset but im already over it. its whatever now.

hope everyone is doing well though

what i've been up to

its probably been the longest break i've taken from posting but i just really haven't felt the need or desire to write as much as i used to. i'll give a quick rundown and recap from the last time i posted to get back up to speed:

- back at school in the beginning of May, i ended up getting a 19/20 on my final paper for my MBA Business Ethics class in which i wrote about legalizing gay marriage. i also ended up with a 4.0 for undergrad classes this past semester (something i've never done before in college) then with an A and B for my two MBA classes.

- went home for the first two weeks of summer and got to chill with all my high school friends. it was especially awesome this time because my best guy friend from high school brought his girlfriend of almost a year back home and i havent hung out with him for more than 2 days in the past 3 years just because he has such shitty breaks for college basketball. but she was super chill and it was really cool that she was so open minded about everything and we all 3 talked a lot about life and stuff in general. i miss that guy though.

- moved to Nashville for the summer and currently living here with my older brother and his wife - though its more like living with my sister-in-law only because my brother is gone 5 days out of the week with his work but its awesome the times me and her have had so far. i was living here two summers ago but this time, i'm here doing an internship - working at a trust company here. not really a fan of my internship though. its similar to last years because i'm working in operations when i want to work on the administration side. i'm kind of just doing bitch office work and i scan papers into the system all day. the positives of my job is that i get to listen to my music all day while i work and they are super lenient on work days which is nice. but still, wish i had a better internship.

- got to hang with Average Gay Dude for a bit when he stopped by in Nashville with his brother on his cross-country road trip. we went to a concert in a dive-bar type of place which i really enjoyed. the music was pretty solid though it wasn't my normal tunes i listen to. then we just walked around downtown and hung out talking for hours.

- Robbie Rogers made his debut for LA Galaxy which was a historic step for American sports and even sports worldwide. in my opinion, he really hasn't shown much and LA Galaxy has really suffered from the trade in which they sent Mike Magee to the Chicago Fire. but still, im fuckin pumped he is with a team and actually getting some minutes!

- went to the Pride parade here in Nashville with my sister-in-law. it was my first one ever to attend and it was decent. i would of thought more people would of showed since Nashville seems pretty liberal in general. i just liked the atmosphere of people being themselves. the coolest thing i saw was a couple hours later after we left the parade and went to dinner at a local burrito place - we saw a couple with their two kids (i'm assuming they were married and they were each other kids) but the kids had rainbow beads and face paintings and the parents had legalize gay shirts on. to see a hetero couple take their kids who were in elementary school to a pride parade, thats fuckin dope and mad props to that couple.

- DOMA and Prop 8 got struck down which is pretty dope.

- went to a gay bar here in Nashville with my sister-in-law. it was a really good time. nothing like the 2 previous gay bars i've been too. this one had legit music and a pretty good drag show and had a shit ton of people there. much better looking crowd as well. one got wanted my number so i gave it to him but i didnt respond the next day when he texted me. really wasnt my type and i did feel kind of bad.

- just got back from home for the 4th. was good seeing the fam again and hangin with my dog since i wont be back there until Christmas break.

randoms:
- movies - watched August which is a gay movie on Netflix and it was pretty good. decent looking guys which def helps the movie. i would say check it out if you are looking for a gay movie. also re-watched Milk on my flight to/from home. such a solid movie and i get goose-gumps several times throughout the movie. its awesome what Harvey Milk accomplished in such a short time.
- music - there has been some solid music out lately that i've been vibin too... J. Cole's Born Sinner cd is solid, Jay-Z dropped the Magna Carta Holy Grail, Chance the Rapper released Acid Drip, Wale has The Gifted, and Kanye West released Yeezus. all pretty different sounds of rap but ive grown to like each one. if yall lookin for a listen, type the cd name then full into youtube and the whole cd comes up....also a kid posted this on facebook tonight - an out, gay country singer, Steve Grand. here is a song called American Boy which i didnt really listen to much but the vid is prettttyyy solid haha
- painting - i also picked up painting while i've been here in Nashville. i got inspired by seeing a painting done by Brek Shea, who is a soccer player for Stoke City in England, but i wanted to recreate it which i made my own version of. and then i ended up doing one for each family memeber and have done 7 total. (i did do one for my sister and her fiance but i guess i dont have a pic of it) let me know what yall think!

did this one for my Dad since he was born in England

did this one for my lil bro - it's the lion of Chelsea, his

favorite soccer team

 did this for me

did this for me also

did this for me as well

did this one for my mom 

here are pics of my cute pup - though we just

 found out today she tore her meniscus 

 she was laying out with my sister

 doing some computer work

 tired from playing so much

me at the driving range

 from the Nashville pride parade

 drag at Pride

celebrating 25 years of Pride in Nashville

such a good quote i found walking the city

the last 3 were drag shows at the gay bar called Play

well, i hope everyone is doing great. bed time for me since i will be waking up at 5:30 to lift before work. take it easy.

history has been made today

if you haven't seen or heard or read anything about it, here it is - the article that was published by Sports Illustrated. Jason Collins came out and is the first American athlete to come out in one of the four major sports.

personally, i never knew or even heard his name before this article. that has changed completely now. i have a huge amount of respect for this man and i hope him the best in signing with a team to continue his career.

so much gay talk today

first off... holy shit! there are so many terrible and tragic things going on in the world as of lately. i feel like everyday, its something new. today in West, Texas, there was a fertilizer plant that exploded. its a city about an hour and a half from where i am from and have driven through the city numerous of times. watching the news and hearing about all the casualties is just killing me. i hate to hear and see all these events happen. here is a link (warning: turn volume down before watching) to what the explosion looked like and immediately, for some reason i teared up. i can't picture what it would be like to be there to see it or even be near it. its just sad.

today i went to another GSA meeting which was the last one of the semester and there was a guest speaker. the speaker was the head minister of our school (i think that's the title at least). she presented different ideas and viewpoints of what it means to be gay and to be a Christian. i was only able to stay for the first hour though because my MBA Business Ethics class started at 6. and coincidentally, in class tonight, we had a guest speaker who is the associate director of religion at our school who discussed gay marriage and traditional Christianity. so i heard a solid 3 hours tonight of gay talk - though i'm not necessarily complaing.

to me, religion is a very interesting topic. i enjoy talking about it even though i don't even know much about it. i do believe there is something greater out there, yet i don't know what exactly that is - that is for another post though. but as of right now after hearing so many different viewpoints on Christianity and homosexuality, my mind is racing. not with confusion about questioning my own sexuality but with confusion of what others truly think about homosexuality. there are so many conflicting ideas when religion and being gay comes up in the same sentence.

i dont even know where to start. the question or ethical issue of letting gays marry doesn't even seem like it should be a problem at all in my eyes. maybe i might be wrong, but at the basis of our country, isn't there a separation of Church and State? so why should the definition of marriage be defined by the biblical meaning which is between a man and woman. it doesn't seem right that our whole nation is governed by the constitution in which it basis' marriage off the Bible even though all citizens in the US are not Christians and do not follow the Bible.

i don't understand why homosexuality tends to be at the forefront of 'sins' in which people judge others on. within the Bible, there are plenty of other 'sins' that are listed as wrong yet those are not highlighted or get the same weight of attention placed upon them. isn't divorce a sin in the Bible unless the woman commits adultery? i'm not 100% sure if that is true or not but if it is, why should people be allowed to get divorced. there should be a law banning divorce between couples unless the woman commits adultery. it only seems fair to me. if something like that was introduced, that would be a huge uproar within society. celebrities might be the most affected by such a legislation i would think.

something else i don't get about 'marriage' is that people say it is designed so couples can procreate. maybe it's just me, but i honestly do not believe every couple is thinking, "yes, the only reason we should marry is to make a kid." i'm pretty sure a couple can have a kid without tying the knot and also, i know many couples get married but choose to not reproduce. should the couples who don't have kids while being married be forced to resign their marriage license because they are not fulling their duties of procreating. or should women or men who are infertile not be allowed to get married?

there are honestly so many thoughts and opinions that i have about this topic. i cant even illustrate them all by writing them down. and when i do think about this, my mind goes in so many directions that it is hard to keep my thinking straight.

one question that i do have and would possibly like some thoughts on is:
can a person be against gay marriage but be pro-gay or gay friendly?

to me, it doesn't make sense and i feel that if a person is against gay marriage, then they can't be considered gay friendly

marathon monday

i was gonna post how great my Monday has been being that i finally finished my so-called 'hell week' which included way too many papers, projects, cases, presentations, and tests. but as i got back from lifting and in the middle of literally 'suiting' up for my investments presentation, i noticed the "Breaking News" headline that was flashing across the screen.

my tv was on and set to CNN in order to be ready for the Robbie Rogers interview with Anderson Cooper once i got back from class that was originally supposed to air tonight. instead, it has been a constant flow of news coverage of the horrible act of violence against those in Boston - or against America as a whole.

from the time i left my room after seeing the news, i was trying to stay up to date with news throughout my class. though i dont know anyone personally who was running, i have friends living in the area of Boston. it just blows my mind to think someone would do such a thing. what would cause a person to want to hurt so many innocent lives? this goes for any horrific act against humans. i dont think there could be a reason that validates this type action that was taken. after seeing the graphic pictures that have been posted online, someone deserves a severe punishment - and i really do hope they find whoever was responsible for this act.

Robbie Rogers is the man

if you haven't read one of the newest articles about Robbie Rogers yet, you should check it out. it's awesome Robbie finally did an interview and explained the situation even more...

it's safe to say, i wish he was my boyfriend though. he is mad good looking, a soccer player, has style, and he doesn't sound gay - just from those qualities, we are a match-made in heaven... (a heaven where being gay is cool with the Big Man though)

linked them in the big-capped 'article' word for yall haha
- this ARTICLE is from the Guardian in London and has a video-interview which was cool

- this ARTICLE is from the New York Times. it's okay but pretty vague compared to the Guardian one.

(untitled post)

today at training, i got some news from a teammate that another teammate of mine told some girl he was talking to a couple weeks back, MY secret. not sure what entitlement he got that he can go out and tell other people something that doesn't involve him. especially when i told him specifically that i didn't want him spreading it. and it just so happens that he told the girl (who plays lacrosse at our school) while she was at lunch with one her teammates - so of course, she over heard and went and told one of her teammates, which in turn, told my teammate, who told me.... for all i know, the whole women's lacrosse team might know or even other kids around campus. when some news hits a team at my school, it tends to spread pretty quick just because all athletes are pretty interconnected.

so i messaged the girl that my teammate told and to see what happened. i was nice about it cause i know her and she is a cool girl but it turned out okay i guess. i mean, yeah i'm pissed but there isn't much i can do about it now. i'm gettin to the point of not caring anyways but i really would like to just come out on my own terms.

in other shitty news, an old teammate of mine that i roomed with my sophomore year came back to visit for a couple of days. he is Jamaican and i know i used to right about him because of the shit he's said in the past about gay people. so tonight before i left to take him downtown to the Amtrack bus station, i told him. wasn't a good response and he just basically dismissed it and said "yup, its about that time to go now". i told him that more than half the team knows and what other people know - it didnt phase he decision that he made up in his mind already though.

i dont know, it just blows my mind how ignorant some people are these days. it's been even more noticeable with Prop 8 and DOMA being voted on the past two days. yes, i changed my facebook profile to the red sign, but i think thats about far i went on facebook. i didnt post any other stuff about it because i dont think its something that needs to be shoved down everyone's throat. its not necessary. i did read numerous posts against same-sex marriage though. many of these just seem to carry no merit when i think about it. it's 2013 - how is this even still a topic? i can't wait for the years when people look back at this time and ask why our society was against it. it happened with African-American rights and womens rights. soon it will be with gay rights.

also, in other shitty news, i think i gave up on soccer too early. it sucks to realize this now. when i should of put in more work regarding my speed and quickness back my sophomore and juniors years, i didnt. i gave up on myself to early because i thought i didnt want to continue after school but now i realize that i love the game too much. when training gets canceled, i get mad. when we do train, i get happy. my mood depends solely on how soccer went that day. people now still ask me why i dont pursue it. when i practice with the team, i feel i stand out. granted i dont think we have the best players we could potentially have, but i still have the natural soccer brain in which can help a player reach that next level. the natural soccer brain is something that lacks on our team. so many players cannot think throughout the game and it kills me to play with these kids. its so frustrating at training to play with kids like that but my love for the game keeps me there.

some positive news though, on monday, i benched 205 four times which was huge for me. that was my first time gettin over 200 and thats with 2 warmup sets and 2 work sets before that. then on wednesday, i squatted 290 five times. thats the most i've done since being at school and holy shit, its pretty heavy haha. a good lift is such a good stress reliever for me. i love seeing the improvements and seeing my numbers go up. and we still got 4 more weeks left of school to bump them up even more.

also, this project that i was working on for the past week was completed today with the final presentation. it was for my estate planning seminar class and we had to set up an estate plan for a wealthy couple with a shit ton of assets and debts. it was cool to put everything we learned together but it was such a headache finding the right plans. especially cause it was supposed to be a group of 3 which turned out to me and one other kid doing all the work. our third group member was a baseball player and used the 'athlete-in-season' card which was bullshit. its all good now though since its over. the remaining 4 weeks are going to suck though with so many papers and projects and tests though.

so this was a bit longer than i anticipated but had some shit on my mind that i needed to get out. hope everyone is doing good though.

i didnt take a year off from being gay

i fuckin love my teammates. they all have been mad supportive and super chill about the whole gay thing. and each new teammate i tell, they take it in stride and dont care.

last night, we were chillin at a teammates apartment drinking and somewhat pre-gaming for the party we didnt end up going to. i was with 3 guys that new then a freshman that didnt know. by the end of the night i told him and of course, he didnt believe and i thought i was bullshitting until the we all convinced him it was true. he said he respected me and had no idea. though he said he thought it was weird that i tweeted the Robbie Rogers story and some other gay news that was big at the time.

towards the end of the night, we were having the typical conversations with the questions. honestly, i love these - the opportunity to educate people on the gay community and general topics regarding gay subjects is always fun to me. the main question that is always a hot button issue is: "is being gay a choice or are you born gay?" i respectively gave my philosophy on the topic and all the guys agreed and understood where i was coming from, except for one. its a kid from NJ on the team and he really is the most chill, easy going guy probably on my team and he even goes to gay clubs back home with his gay friends; but he thinks its a choice. when we were going back and forth debating our hands, the other guys sided with me and completely agreed on how attraction to a gender isn't a thing to where you choose. its a natural progression without conscientiously thinking about it. i explained to when i knew i was gay and for how long i've been closeted.

it was cool that one of my teammates felt sympathetic for me by not truly being myself until i first told someone my sophomore year. he couldnt grasp the idea of me not coming out until college and going through high school completely closeted. the funniest thing he said was "so were you gay freshman year though cause you didnt come out until sophomore year..." yes he was completely smashed cause they were drinking at the beach since 2 but we all just died laughing. he said he had so much respect for me and that he loved a lot. it was a cool thing though.

unrelated to this post:
-went to another gay meeting thing last week and it was actually a good one cause it was people sharing their coming out stories. it was kind of fucked up as well though cause the 4 people that shared, their parents didnt accept them and they all have had rough times coming out. one girl that shared, her parents found out by a picture on the internet and her parents went behind her back to apply for other colleges and one was Liberty University (aka Anti-gay University). so one day she got called by them explaining how she was accepted and it caught her off guard since she clearly didnt apply there. i felt pretty bad for them since my coming out has been pretty smooth. i was going to share and right when i was about to start, the group had to get out of the room cause their was a class that was about to start ...(it was my MBA business ethics class actually which seems pretty interesting so far)

-still single

spring break'in

its been a busy past couple of weeks. had a few midterms and even a final for a grad class of mine. it all turned out relatively well so my parents were pleased with the grades which is always good.

just got back to school this past sunday since my spring break was last week... it all started friday the 1st with a short flight to Regan in DC. then had a take a shuttle to Dulles, the other airport in the area to meet up with my pops, (he flew from Dallas). then we boarded our flight and took off to London for a short 3 and a half day trip. it was sick. i love that city even though it is very over priced. we managed to get tickets to Chelsea v. West Brom from a player on Chelsea and they were decent seats. at Standford Bridge, there really isnt a bad seat in the house and Chelsea won so my dad was happy because thats the team he supports. from there, we went to dinner with my dad's aunt and uncle. it was awesome seeing them since its been about 10 years from the last time i saw them. after finishing dinner, we took a short taxi ride to my dads cousins apartment. his place was super nice! it was a 4 story apartment and the rooms were super small but the whole set up was dope. its a place i could see myself living in one day. and side note - but my dads cousin is very good looking! sexy british accent as well. he is married but shit, he would be an ideal guy for me, besides the whole straight part haha

the next day we tried to get tickets to my favorite teams game - Arsenal v. Tottenham Spurs. it wasn't happening though. we arrived at White Hart Lane 3 hours prior to the game in hopes of getting them from tout but they were selling for 700 pounds for 2 which is outrageous. it would be about $1,100. so we ended up watching the game in a Spurs bar right outside the stadium which was a cool atmosphere. Spurs lost so they were all in good spirits while i was pretty pissed though. from there, we kind of did the touristy things. headed to Big Ben, Tower of London, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, just about everything.

we were about to head to Paris for the last day on the Euro-train but since we were booking it so late, it was too expensive. for the last day, we did some shopping and more touristy stuff. overall, it was fuckin dope though. i already cant wait to go back one day.

from London, we flew direct to Dallas which was about 9 1/2  hours. it surprisingly passed pretty quickly though since the plane had such good movies. in all of flying, i watch Argo, Silver Lining Playbook, Life of Pie, End of Watch, and Looper. they were all quality moveis besides Life of Pie, that movie just wasnt for me haha

the rest of spring break i spent hanging with my fam and a couple of buddies that were in town. as always, i loved every minute of it. as ive gotten older, spending time with my family has become so much more important to me and even if we arent doing anything fun or exciting, im enjoying myself simply cause im with them. 

 Tower Bridge

Tower of London

 Standford Bridge - Chelsea's stadium

 Piccadilly Circus

 Parliament and Big Ben

 Floating Yoda

 Drunk dude in Victoria Station

Hyde Park

 at the Chelsea v. West Brom game

 worlds smallest fold out bed

 the Emirates Stadium - home of Arsenal

 White Hart Lane - home of Tottenham Spurs

 the Emirates again

 Buckingham Palace - where the Queen resides

 

the London Eye

Necessary Roughness

Necessary Roughness is a TV series on USA but last night was the season finale. (i think there will be a season 2 though). i found out about the show just last week but i seem to have to caught the most important 2 episodes of the whole season, or at least the ones that pertains to me.

overall, its about a professional football organization and their sport psychiatrist that deals with the inter-workings of the team. it has the relationships, action, and other appealing things about TV shows these days. the part that i thought was cool, was that the QB of the team, was a closeted man his whole life and had a boyfriend, and just last weeks episode, decided to tell the psychiatrist because it was mentally draining him which was hurting his performance on the field. then in the final episode, he wanted to publicly come out (which he did of course after the cliche heroic football performance to win in the last seconds).

it was awesome to see him overcome the hatred in the locker room when it was being talked about and how he had teammates back him up when he needed it. the crazy thing when i was watching the show was, it almost made me cry. it gave me that distinct feeling inside of when i get upset. it brought back so many emotional memories of being in the closet with no one knowing the full me (though im still not fully out). he described all the loneliness and pain he has suffered throughout the years of his friends and family not knowing. i could relate dead on with the whole team sport aspect and just the feeling of complete isolation within the locker room.

i sure hope they make a second season because i want to see the progression of him personally and how society takes a professional athlete as coming out as gay. if yall havent seen it, i recommend it. check the listing on the USA website of Hulu or something like that. it was a real cool show though.

also, check this song. been bangin it all day since i heard it this morning.