May 8th, 2025: Amazing day today, I first woke up and went to the convenience store to get a 2 for 1 deal on Rice Krispies cereal and then had some of that along with some coffee to make the day go well. I then walked over to the Catholic center and chilled there as I watched the livestream of the papal conclave on my computer. I also had like 3 assignments to do in relation to my German class today and I completed them all before class even started. I knew that some black smoke had gone up for the morning session on the second day of the conclave before (Italy (more specifically The Vatican) is ahead of us time-wise) so I didn’t really have my hopes up that it would conclude soon. But, at roughly 10:45pm I noticed that there was white smoke coming out of the chimney and I got super excited, I immediately shouted the news:
“WHITE SMOKE!”
I went around the center shouting it, I told it to Ben and even went downstairs and had to tell it to the guy I was in my Machine Learning class with when he was talking to the priest. I was so delighted to see that but there wasn’t any announcement as to who it would be. In the family groupchat I posted:
>WHITE SMOKE! A NEW POPE HAS BEEN ELECTED!
My dad replied:
<Who dat?
I walked to my German class while watching the livestream on my phone, thankfully I had my eyes opened so I wasn’t always just looking down at it. I got into my German class and I had my phone on the livestream, they hadn’t announced who the new Pope was yet because nobody had exited, the teacher showed us the music video for Ich Will by Rammstein and I only half watched it because I didn’t want to accidentally miss them showing off who the new Pope is. After the video was done the teacher talked about how his favorite Rammstein video was that of a 2019 live performance of Du Hast in France (I’m not sure) but over half of the members of the band are certified pyrotechnicians, I announced the white smoke thing in the class and they were all surprised, Khadija’s brother was there but Quentin was not. A bit later, one of our activities was to say what we wanted to be after college and we tried to stump the professor if we got a word that he didn’t know. I said Data Scientist and he sort of knew that word, he wrote down Data-wissenschaftler on the board and I looked it up and it was actually Datenwissenschaftler, so pretty close, but because I was livestreaming the conclave, the teacher said that I had to say my dream job was the Pope, or Der Papst (contrasted with the beer brand Pabst) I saw the new Pope finally come out and it looked like Pietro Parolin but I was mistaken and I found out a bit later it was actually Robert Francis Prevost who became Pope, I even texted the family groupchat about it)
>He’s from Chicago!
>Pope Leo XIV (born Robert Francis Prevost, September 14, 1955)
I was super excited and then I had to say that I wanted to be Pope later on in life. A few others agreed with the teacher’s decision including Khadija’s brother and this girl he would always partner up with. I said it and then we got let out of class early. I walked over to this restaurant and got a burger for lunch and saw the groupchat.
<Habemus papam - Markus
<HES AN AMERICAN! Leo XIV - another guy
<
- Elizabeth
>YEAHHHHHHHHHH
<What was his birth name? - Elizabeth
<Robert Francis Prevost - another guy
>He’s from Chicago!
<Midwest is best - Seraphim
<It’s cool that he’s from America! - Hand girl
I then walked back home to post the Biblejak for the day congratulating the new Pope and I chilled for a bit at home until Ben posted some exquisite bait in the groupchat:
<Can you all hear yourselves! Calling a MAN Holy father! This is blasphemous! What would Jesus have to say about this?
A bit later he replied:
<Just Kidding 
. This is awesome 
.
The Honduran said:
<Hahahah, I was wondering when we became Baptist
To which Ben replied:
<Lol Yeah, I wasn’t necessary pretending to be any religion. I just wanted to see if people would think I personally didn’t believe in a Pope.
My lab was about socket connections in C with most of it being set up for us, we had to send a phrase to the server and then have it sent back to the client all in uppercase, I completed that quickly and then got dressed up all fancy for my internship interview which I thought I had at 4:30pm, I called to confirm and she said that their offices closed at 4:30pm so I got dressed for nothing. Also 6ie replied to my thing that I had sent her a couple of weeks ago about her meeting her husband Rocky with this:
<No way, we didn’t meet till I was 26 and he was 29. There is noooooo way I would have been interested in him back then. He was a snowboarding bum with long hair who loved to party in college. In fact, we had mutual friends for years before we were officially introduced and those 3-4 years I don’t think I ever took a second look at him even though we were at multiple parties and concerts as a group of 20ish ppl.
I found that funny and then I walked over to the Catholic center to write out my blog entry. I got a text from my sister saying:
<Gemerson what is your confirmation name
I replied:
>Ambrose
<Why
<Wow! An American Pope? What order? - Mom
<Augustinian
>I asked my friends and only one chose one.
I then was sitting in the main entrance when some people came in and talked about driving all the way to Whitewater. They asked me if I wanted to go and I agreed. I got in the car with Seraphim, the second girl I danced with, and Sideburns. As we were driving out, this car behind us got rear ended and had a good amount of damage so we had to call the others to see if it was their car that got rear ended but they were safe. We drove a good distance while Seraphim created a blend where we could add songs. I got criticized for putting a long Emerson Lake and Palmer song on the list. I found out that the girl driving us and Sideburns are cousins and that her 20th birthday is in 2 days while Sideburns’s birthday is the same day as mine but in 2005. I told them about the girl that lives in Whitewater who was obsessed with me and goes to a Church service but I think she’s non-denominational. Sideburns revealed to me that he has a crush on this girl that was also going with us in the other car that he has known since childhood but he said he was discerning the priesthood, I said that he should become a deacon instead so he would still be free to marry and serve God more efficiently. We finally got to Whitewater and they were serving hamburgers for dinner so I got two burger patties and slices of cheese on mine. I sat with this new crowd at first and then with some of my old peeps, which included the hand girl (dubbed Hannah now) and the first girl I danced with. I made a joking remark saying:
“I don’t have enough alcohol in my system to talk about Israeli politics.”
Which made Seraphim exclaim:
“I swear you and the Honduran are like Tweedledee and Teeedledumbfuck!”
We then started playing in this gigantic game of volleyball after celebrating the seniors. The ball went out into the road multiple times and I shouted:
“Kid in the road!”
Whenever that happened. We lost count of all the people there but the girl I danced with first and Hannah were laying in the sun for a bit and then joined our game. A bit later we went over to the fire pit and started a fire. Hannah and the two girls I danced with decided to sit all on this one wooden bench at once and it collapsed. We laughed and put it into the fire while we talked until we decided to all walk to this ice cream place. Along the way we passed by this frat house and a guy there yelled:
“Have fun at the bars!”
I replied:
“Actually we’re going to get ice cream!”
They all started laughing and brought it up when we got there, in the ice cream shop it was empty except for one depressed employee who was working closing until 9:45pm. Seraphim and Sideburns got there first. I got two scoops of Zanzibar chocolate and loved it. The second girl I danced with made a joke about calling her grandma racist because she only likes white beans, so I replied:
“In solidarity with Black Lives Matter, I will be eating a can of black beans.”
Which made everyone crack up. We got driven back except for Seraphim and this other guy that was wearing the shirt that John Belushi wore in Animal House, they were walking back and weren't as fast as the others that were walking, so we got concerned and I called what I though was his phone number but it was actually the original Seraphim's number (the one who actually has kids) or oSeraphim, I ended up deciding to leave a message because why not. I watched the fire a bit more and ate some marshmallows until we finally decided to head home at 10:00pm with the same groups as before. The blend when we got home was pretty cool and I didn’t put any super long songs on it. We stopped at a Kwik Trip and refilled. I went into the bathroom and when we got out the second girl gave me the task of putting away the nozzle and she was laughing, I got in and found out that it was because I put Slow Jamz on the playlist and we talked about Kanye West, I got dropped off at home and then went to sleep.
Song of the Day: Sweet Home Chicago - The Blues Brothers (1980)
