April 2006 – Something Weird

National champions, that is. The Florida Gators, newly crowned NCAA basketball national champs!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m still finding it hard to believe, that we’ve just won our first basketball title, and in such an amazing fashion! Now I just have another reason to always remember my freshman year here…

Monday night/Tuesday morning was one of the coolest times EVER…it all started when I went to the Jungle(apartment at Lakeside, for you uninformed people) for a pre-game cookout. Actually, first me, Javier, Nicole and Alicia went to Publix and got food first, after which we did some awesome cookout action. I think I had about 6 hotdogs…

After that, it was time for The Game. It started awesomely, as we took the lead early…and we never turned back. Every couple of minutes, me and Javier would look at each other and say, “Man, we’re up by 16 in the national championship!” And then, with about four minutes left in the game, it started to dawn on us that we were GOING TO WIN. We counted down the final seconds and then the Jungle erupted…National Champions, Florida Gators! We ran out to the car, yelling and screaming along with the rest of Gainesville as we made our way to University Ave. and when we got there…wow. There were a LOT of people just crowding the street. The police had the road blocked off for quite a ways, and they had horses! But nothing got too out of hand.

We were screaming, cheering, singing(“We are the champions, my friends…”)…there were people climbing the lightpoles and throwing toilet paper over the traffic signals. There was such a bond between all of us on that street…it’s funny how victory causes such unity! It was pure awesomeness. At about 2, we tried to go to Steak ‘n Shake to further celebrate, but they were lame and insisted on not cleaning their tables and on having an hour wait for milkshakes. So that idea didn’t work out…but we sorta chilled there for a while anyways.

Finally, tired, voices gone, we retreated back to our dorms…me and Javier figured that it would probably be a good idea to get some sleep before our 7:25 lab. I definitely only got an hour or so of sleep, so was DEAD in lab. Surprisingly, most people showed up…and thankfully, Rob knew what he was doing because I sure wasn’t a lot of help. All day yesterday was sort of a haze…it was funny walking around campus, because everyone looked tired…but with smiles on their faces. I wanted to get a championship shirt, but $20 is a bit steep…my mom said she’d pick one up in Tampa.

Now, here’s a bunch of pictures, courtesy of Nicole and Alicia…

Mmmm, hot dogs.