Post #9 - Long Live Jasper

What a day it has been. Yesterday was intense, really intense. (see post #8).
So, as Chris had mentioned, there were indeed two stabbings. The one that Carol and I saw went by the mane of Jasper Howard. He was on the UCONN football team and had contributed greatly to the winning of yesterday's football game (38-25). Jasper was sent to Windham hospital before being airlifted to St. Francis's hospital where he was declared dead  Jasper was the first in his family to make it to college and "often talked about his dream of making it professionally so that he could support his family"  (http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-football/hc-uconn-stabbing-jasper-howard-1018,0,69181.story). His family lives down in Miami, Fl and will be flown up to Connecticut soon. One of the saddest things that I heard about this, beside's Jasper's death, was that he was a daddy-to-be.

I think my heart stopped.

I can't even begin to wonder the despair that his girlfriend must be feeling right now. His girlfriend lives down in Florida and was up over the weekend to visit him. The devistation she must be going through is too great for words. It is a wonder that she was not at that party. My heart goes out to her as she raises the baby. this may not be fact, but i have heard that the child will have many many "uncles" as the football team will make every attempt to make the child's life as good as it can be. Talk about loyalty to a team member. I think that is so amazing what they are doing. The whole team must be going through such a hard time at this moment and this child will surely bring them even closer together and allow Jasper's memory to live on forever. Also, I suspect that when that baby is born, every single team member will be in that hospital room on the day of the delivery (if it's close enough or feasible to pull it off, she does live in Florida). If so, wouldn't that just melt your heart? if that was in the news, i would be so estatic; we don't see enough of that these days. We need more compassion in this world.

For everyone's sake, I seriously hope everything works out for Jasper's girlfriend and child. Jasper's memorial service should be soon and I'm definetly going to attend if possible. I'll make every attempt possible and I hope some of you do too.

Thats about it for now, I'll write more soon, thanks for reading,

dan

Post #8 - Stabbing at the U!

Intense! So, post #7 is so last year. So much has happened since then. So, Carol and I tried downloading that thing to my computer, but it wasn't working. Carol was all like. "I want food. Like, real food. How about we go down to the U? Are you up for it?"
"Hmmmm." I said, not sure. It was cold out, 45. "Sure, fine."
"really?"
"Yea, no problem. I'm in the mood for some ice-cream. I hear its Dairy Ban ice cream."
"really?" Carol asked. "But it's cold."
I shrugged. I went to my room to grab my stuff, Chris had just finished his movie and was getting ready to walk his friends home. I put on some warm mitts and a hat and we left. We walked to the U quickly, shivering. I had to go pee. Sorry, just stating the facts.
We went into the building and I got my ice cream and Carol got her wings. I also got this gross protein shake from Odwalla. don't get it. So, we had just sat down when the fire alarm went off. It was kind of funny, no one moved. Everyone was all like WTF? and stayed put. Eventually, after we had all gotten on our warm mittins and things we left.
We walked out the building to the back. i was really curious about what had happened. Carol wanted to go home, but I said, "let's take the long way, and walk around the front of the building." carol agreed and we walked around, taking the long way towards the front (we exited around the back) and the street. When we got there, everyone started coming out of the building (there was a huge party or something) and standing around. Chris was there, apparently not walking his friends home (there were still with him, wrong direction from their place). We called out to him and chilled for a bit. Chris ate Carol's wings. I drank my gross protein shake. i'm detirmined to finish it.
These two guys were fighting and everyone started to run towards the fight. We did too, hey, we were curious. But, by the time we got in sight, the cops had broken it up. bummer. I asked Chris what happened, he said there was a fight. i noted at that point to Carol, that Chris was a good networker and that if you needed any info, talk to him. He knows everything.
Chris then left and went somewhere. Thats when it happened. We were standing on the side walk, talking about the cops and stuff. We weren't really looking into the street, but at eachother. Someone was being really loud, yelling and everything. someone then ran past us and jumped on the ledge we were standing beside, he was clutching his gut, with an intense look of pain on his face. he lifted his shirt up and looked at himself he was facing slightly away from us so we couldn't see anything. before we could react, he ran off towards the entrance to the U.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Was he stabbed?" Carol asked, shocked.
"OMG!" I yelled, but quietly. I was kind of scared and did not want to attract attention to myself. I suspect Carol didn't want to either.
We couldn't see the guy anymore so we both turned back to the street, to see who had done it.
"Is that blood?" Carol asked.
"Where?" i replied, I had no clue, i was looking on the ground on the street but didn't see anything.
"The guy with the blue shirt." Carol said. (He was one of the people who were fighting before, i realized at that moment. I saw him screaming bloody murder at this other guy before the first fight had happened). It was true, the guy in the blue shirt (bright blue, he looked cold. It was a t-shirt. Carol was wearing two jackets) had blood on the back of his shirt, in the center. I don't know how it got there.
A police officer questioned the guy. It was a bit far away and I couldn't hear much. The guy in blue was with his gfriend or something. The officer asked him for his student id (I think), but he said he didn't have it.
so, after that, Carol and I turned to eachother to acess what had just happened.
"What just happened?" I asked.
"I don't know." Carol said slowly. We discussed if for a few minutes, we walked out of the way, of course. We didn't want to get into the middle of it.
Chris ran up to us then, yelling (quietly) for us to get out of here. he started to push us back around the U. "Whaever you do. don't go that way" Chris said to us, gesturing towards the mob of people. He turned around and walked back, we haven't seen him since (he's ok, don't worry). We walked around the U, talking about what had just happened. I was all like, "i'm so blogging about this" and Carol was all like "i am so calling my parents." i did, she didn't, we decided against it, it would be on the news anyways. But she did text everyone, word gets around fast. We were then back on the main road that the U was on and watched a police car and an ambulence roll by. I decided then that I was going to call Chris and see if he was ok. i pulled out my phone and he was calling me. Fancy that. he hung up before I could get to it so I called him back.
He was making sure I was Ok. I was, dont worry. I filled him in on what happened, and he told me that there might have been two. I'm not sure, i dont remember.
That's about it. the two of us are back home now, safe and sound. don't worry about us.ttyl

Dan

Mood: Scared - only a little, but excited at the same time, and nervous, i hope that guy is alright
Music: The sound of gossip - it's all over our hallway now
Location: guess