So last week I spoke about my inability to stay in one place for too long and how I was beginning to get that itch to travel. Well minutes after finishing my finals on Wednesday I started to scratch that itch. Before I turned in my last test I was already dialing Dalia (a BFF), ready to ask where she wanted to fly in two days. We listed off the interesting places that we´d want to visit and started rounding down countries by weather and the chance of getting raped while in the country. Not long later we decided on Peru, Italy and Morocco.

Because I have to be up in four hours for a five days hike in the mountains, I´ll cut to it and say we choose Peru. I´m currently in a hostel repacking my suitcase and leaving at 4am to hike the Salkantay Trail. It´s a 40 mile trail throuh the mountains that eventually ends at Machu Picchu. The Salkantay mountain is 15,253ft high and we were told to wait a week to get adjusted to the altitude… we´re waiting nine hours (note I´m currently at 9,000ft and get out of breath walking up the stairs–we´ll see how the hike goes).

Not planning on getting raped,

Daniel Dickey

In the last six months my life has become incredibly boring. No, this isn’t going to be a blog about depressed men watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (though I do plan to write about that one day). I’m actually wonderfully satisfied with life–it’s just it’s become quite monotone lately. I go to school; I go home and eat fish sticks; I read books about school while eating more fish sticks; I go back to school. Honestly, I’ve done it so much that I don’t even like fish sticks anymore–and fish sticks are delicious. Eventually I’m going to purchase other food, but I bought the fish sticks at Costco and have therefore been stuck with six pounds of the Gorton’s fisherman. Gorton sucks. I hate his stupid raincoat.

I’ve reduced myself to the binary opposite of my previous life, because it’s the only way I’ll ever get through school.I have a hard time committing to a thirty minute TV show, let alone a year of Renaissance poetry and America Literature Pre-Civil War. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love going to school. I love reading literature and writing prose, but my mind’s far too ADHD to stick to one thing for long. I’m taking 15-18 credits a semester because if I don’t get it all done super fast I’ll end up having a hankering to travel and fly to southeast Asia before finals. Do know how hard it is to take a 17th century literature final on a plane to Thailand? I don’t know either; and I’m hoping to keep myself focused enough so I won’t have to know.

With that all of that said, this is my last week of an 18 credit semester. BUT two weeks from now starts a 15 credit summer term, mixed in with studying for the GRE and then finally taking the GRE. With fall semester comes applying to the best grad schools in the country, while taking another 15 credits. After that I’ll receive all my acceptance letters and then travel somewhere far for a couple months until leaving for grad school*.

*If I’m not accepted to grad school, I’ll still be traveling–just instead of doing it for pleasure, I’ll be doing it hoping that I’m kidnapped and beaten by terrorist (which hopefully gets played on national news and makes the schools that turned me down feel bad and offer me immediate admittance).

Here’s to Harvard,

Daniel Dickey

Last night I went to the first of what I assume will be many more of my friends tying the knot. It’s not surprising, as I’ve quickly watched my Facebook feed go from homo-social drinking binges and “boys vacations” to instagram photos of ugly babies, bachelorette parties and engagement rings. Listen, I’m an uncle and genuinely understand the ability of a baby to be ridiculously cute, but come on–yesterday a girl posted sixty pictures of her daughters first bath. Sixty! Not only did you openly post porn for pedophiles, but how many pictures do you think the world (I now refer to Facebook as the world, seeing it’s all we care about) wants to see of little Emma–or whatever her name is–getting her stupid baby hair washed? And really, she was crying in half of them. I assume it’s because you’re barely twenty and baby daddy bought cheap-a$$ Suave shampoo instead of Johnson’s No More Tears and now little Cindy has an eye infection. You going to post pictures of that as well?

My frustration is not in weddings (I love open bars) or babies, but more in aging. Getting older sucks. Do you know what happens when I scrunch my forehead together? Like twenty little rolls of fat and face jelly squeeze together and tell the world how old and ugly I am. Do you know what happened when I did that a couple of years ago? Nothing happened. My forehead would just sort of wink and look dashing as fu#k. All I have to do is sneeze and my face looks like Rosanne Barr trying to fit in a pair of extra-small Spanx. When I was eighteen I would go out all night, go to class in the morning and still spend the afternoon teaching myself how to sing like Nina Sky. Now I fall asleep ten minutes after 1:00am and I have to call out of work for a week and a half. I walk up a flight up stairs and my knees start cracking. Really? Ten steps and my knees start thinking, “you know what? This is just too much for us. We need to start hurting Danny so he’ll go sit back on the couch and think about his fat forehead.”

I guess the mix of wedding cake and baby’s first birthday invites has me hating. Not on children or love, just that the both of them remind me I no longer need a fake id to buy cheap bottles of Goldschlager and sneak into nightclubs with dumb names like, “Saucy” and “Club Fancy Doors.”

I wish I could still get into Club Fancy Doors with a dashing forehead,

Daniel Dickey

I can confidently say I have no desire to ever listen to dubstep. It sounds like a mix of a blender filled with rocks and a car alarm going off at the same time. I’d rather watch my first born be eaten by a pack of wolves then listen to anything labeled as a “dubstep remix.” I’m not hating on it–I just can’t listen to it without getting a headache and therefore choose not to.

But I despite me not listening to dubstep, I have seen enough pictures of Skrillex to find this hilarious. If you’re unsure of what he looks like, Google image him before looking at this.

Bahahaha remix this.

Hahaha I’m dying. This is what I feel like every Monday.

Dear President Saunders,

When the senate attacked our budget without regard to the importance of higher education I voiced my opinion on behalf of FAU. The following Op-Ed was published in the Sun Sentinel and Palm Beach Post.

As a current FAU student, I’m both embarrassed and outraged knowing that our senators would push to limit Florida’s intellectual progression. By cutting collegiate budgets you seriously sever the opportunities, growth and gains of our union. We whimper with each state that surpasses us scholastically, yet we jump at the opportunity to impede our own academic advancements. A deficit in our education is a deficit in our community. Higher learning is the ladder to a better future and those who threaten it, do so without regard for our state’s well-being.

Florida is more than sun, fun and Disney financed fairy tales. We’re the 20th largest GDP in the world. As a single state we surpass the economies of entire nations; and it’s only more reason to reinvest in our sustenance.Don’t allow migrant working orange farms to be the symbol of our future, instead boast on our intellect and empower intelligence to triumph and flourish in all of Florida. Let the minds of our youth be the fruit that feeds our economy.

Though young, I will not remain muted to injustice and public overspending for private fiscal gains. Stop crippling our schools and start starving out the political gluttony that originally led our budget to fail. Greed should bear the weight of our financial deficit, not education. An investment in academics is one that pays dividends.

Senators I plead to you, do not cut the hand that holds forthcoming success. But hold that hand for a moment and let it lead our state to prosperity. The path to economic progress is through education–there are no shortcuts–don’t let there be budget cuts.

When you sent out an email on March 16th stating, “that protecting academic services to students ranks as our first priority,” I believed you.  I slept assured that summer classes would not be disrupted. Unfortunately for me as a student and FAU as a university, you’ve let the board go back on your earlier promise. Did you mean to say academics rank as a first priority to be cut? (If so, then the recent shredding of summer courses makes sense.) What’s the point of allocating money to design and build new campuses when they’re going to sit empty due to poor judgement? Do we really need another $8 million parking garage? Do we need to add another fraternity to our list?

I understand the hardship of balancing a budget while equally trying to help FAU gain the prestige and school spirit that other Florida colleges already posses–but don’t hurt education in the process. Lets gain notoriety in our aptitude for academics. Stop fretting about a 1-11 division one football team and start worrying about a 2.8 school average GPA. We are a college, a school of higher learning and we cannot forget that education is our core. The second we slide away from that is the second we end up failing as an institution. Please don’t let a sad C average turn into something far worse. Bring back our full curriculum and you’ll be thanked for rising above the faults of our board.

Sincerely,
Daniel Dickey

I feel bloggers always hold and have a war within themselves for not “blogging as much as I should.” And well, I understand it because I feel like I’m not “blogging as much as I should.” It’s a petty problem–if even that. But still, I should be writing more. I say this now because on Monday alone I had 12,000 readers. Take a second to think of how many people that is. Now give me a second couple of seconds to think of how many people that is (note I got into writing when math decided it didn’t want to be friends).

When I started this blog over three and a half years ago I was head over heels happy to get 50 readers a day. Actually for a while 50 readers seemed godly, if not impossible. I had just moved to New York and most of my writing endeavors consisted of stage and screenplays (mostly unproduced). I desperately wanted another outlet to express myself, but I didn’t want to be seen writing in a diary. I wanted the opportunity for others to read my work, as my girlfriend and close friends no longer cared to. And most importantly I wanted to expand as a writer. Well hello Wordpress. Lets be friends (unlike math–we’re still not friends).

Since that first blog written in a subletted Brooklyn apartment I’ve grown tremendously as a writer. I’ve been published in magazines, newspapers and even once in a fortune cookie (note I paid to have my prose put inside the cookie. But still, it was printed).  And none of it would’ve been possible without starting and maintaining a blog. This has been the light that helped me find my literary voice in a dark room filled with once upon a time and knock knock jokes. It’s forced me to write, rewrite, delete, write again, rewrite again and eventually throw my computer on the ground and eat ice cream while watching The Ghost Whisperer. Ideally I would’ve had a book published my now, but seeing that there are currently over 50 million blogs on the internet, I’m not fretting about the delay. This wasn’t started with the intent of getting a book deal (complete lie), this began as a tool to help me build a solid career with words. And it has helped.

Here and there I’ll click to a random month in my achieves and see what I was blogging about then. Some times it’s an erotic story about making love to a garden gnome and other times it’s about getting a henna tattoo on my face, but in each I spot errors I’d never make now. Not necessarily syntax and grammar–though there are plenty of those–but my attempts at showcasing a voice is flawed. It’s obvious I didn’t even know what my voice was. I was trying, but failing miserably at capturing the magic going on in my head. I often read old posts that make me cringe, but on the other end of the spectrum, sometimes I cross ones that makes me laugh out loud. Either way I keep them because it reinforces my original intent when started this–grow. However, wherever, whenever–grow.

I’ve written on this blog during some of my happiest moments and equally during some of my saddest. It’s hugged me during breaks up and hi-fived me during sexcapades. In it you’ll find raw pieces of life and humorous musings about clay and penis shaped clouds. You’ll see funny pictures and silly videos and read politics and poems. You’ll find me in many different forms–and whichever form you happen to stumble into, I’m happy you’re here.

It feels good to have grown to 12,000 readers a day,

Daniel Dickey

Hilarious. Emily I’m so proud of you right now. I don’t know who you are, but I’m proud. Email me and I’ll send you some revealing pictures of Tom Hanks or buy you a mouse pad–whatever you’re into.

“When I say I’m not drinking tonight but then someone orders me a shot of Jameson.”

Hahahaha saw this on Tumblr. Well played… well played.

While walking the red carpet for her new perfume launch, Kim Kardashian had flour thrown at her. I suppose she kneaded that?

Impressively, she didn’t press charges against the girl that threw the flour at her. And she even told the paramedics on site that she didn’t want medical treatment. Talk about roughing it out! She headed to her hotel room, changed clothes and went back to the event. Not too shabby.

In other news, Whitney Houston looked exactly the same at her time of death.