Over and done... [edited]
Aug. 6th, 2005 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chu_totoroCTY is over. Again. It makes me sad...
It's amazing how much can be crammed into a short three weeks. And when you come back, nothing changes. Life goes on. But something inside... it's different. And you're never quite the same again.
when you arrive, you never left.
while you're here, it lasts forever.
All these personalities I've got to know, all that bonding... it hit me on the plane. I'll never see most of them again. I knew that, but while we were still at CTY and talking and signing yearbooks saying "I'll miss you so much!" it wasn't real. I didn't realize how much I would miss them. But when the plane finally took off I looked out the window and saw L.A. receding before my eyes BAM the sudden realization tore me apart inside out and I ended up crying on the plane although nobody noticed because I didn't want them to.
Nicole lives in Arizona. I doubt I'll ever see her again. I'll never talk to her in person again. The food, the Hebrew, the beef jerky.....
Christine talked to me online yesterday. But it's not the same.
...and Allison and Jaanhvi and Romy and Ashley and Jessica, the 12-year old 15-year old, I'll probably talk to all of them online but it's different. It won't be the same. It can't be the same. It'll never be the same again. Because there's no regaining the past.
WE LOVE SUGAR + NERDS!!
The first day
Left home and flew to L.A. with Elizabeth and Debra. Had to pay an extra $20 each because we were "unaccompanied minors." Should've told them I was 15. When we got there we sat in the bus for the longest time because it circled round and round for nearly an HOUR picking up other CTY kids. We thought we'd miss the icebreakers except there were no icebreakers. Val was sick. So we threw a party instead. Much more efficient than some silly icebreaker game. By some weird chance or the other, my prediction that Elizabeth and I might be roommates proved accurate. We weren't even taking the same class. Kinda scary....
Met everyone, remet Ashley, and helped tape up "We love sugar and nerds." Rest of the day was mostly boring.
The second day
Met our classmates (remet Yong, ironically enough), and things pretty much settled down. Met Debra and Tiffany's roomates (Lynelle and Cordy... or wait, was it Curie? Crap, I keep confusing the two of them). Played frisbee during break, and one of them got on the roof. Nathan threw it. Security guard got it back down, eventually.
Overall first week
Uneventful. Met a number of new people. Also met a few people from last year. Did Arts and Crafts for a weekly and made two friendship bracelets and a lanyard. Played frisbee, freeze tag, frisbee again (I think), and something else... can't remember.
First dance
Pretty fun. Tiffany's a good dancer. I'm glad she came to CTY. Hollywood theme - was feeling self-conscious and went down in just jeans and a shirt, but halfway through it got really hot in the jeans, so I ended up running back up Desmond (so convenient) and changing into a skirt.
First weekend
Went to Ralphs. Albertsons closed. =( But Ralphs was cool. Non-mandatory fun was pretty boring. Did some frisbee, did some trench, went around and talked, cards... yeah.
Water Day was fun, though. Held in Sunken Gardens this year. Stayed in the wet zone the whole time and got thoroughly soaked (and sunburned), but that's okay. Went around spraying random peeps (deja vu~). Got into a water fight with Del while my friends unceremoniously ditched me for food. They helped me when they came back, but they went overboard so I, in turn, unceremoniously backstabbed them.
...t'was all in good fun.
Second week
Music Practice for weekly. Too many pianists. 'Twas terrible. Ah, but had I known what Max was planning for the talent show, I don't think I would have minded so much. The talent show was pretty good, for the most part. Some acts (like the serenade) were not so good, but others were greatly entertaining. The Medley was awesome. Max has mad piano skills. He went through half the songs in the dance. People rushed down to bow down to him at the end of it..... I wish they hadn't riled the people up so much, though, saying that the most enthusiastic RA group would recieve a prize. They nearly deafened me, and they kept standing up and cheering and running around so much that I couldn't see.
For dailies I did Spongeball, Duck Hunt (they forgot the supplies so we ended up doing cloudwatching, though there were no clouds, and me, Dylan, plus a few others slipped incognito into How to be a Central American Dictator), Capture the Flag (way too many people), and Olde Fashione Dodgeballe. (I thought it would be an everyone-for-themselves game except it turned out to be basically Trench without the trench...)
Drag day was incredibly funny (though Joe's clothing felt more like giant PJs than drag), Quan was uncannily feminine, and many guys wore skirts. Never managed to catch a pic of Quan though. A pity. But I'm sure my friends have plenty...
Second dance was not fun. They gave "song requests" and people requested many slow fast songs. At least, that's what it seemed like. And they didn't play Toma. (MUEVELO MUEVELO SIN PARA!!!) They should choose better songs out of the stupid requests next time. Although sk8er boi wasn't bad. Still. Only the last 1/4 of it was any fun. And I danced to Stairway this time. Except that was pretty much destroyed, too, by guilt pressure, when we found out that Elizabeth had a... nerve inflammation? During the train during "It's the end of the world as we know it" something happened to her. More accurately her nerve. Her hands got numb and the numbness moved... up her arm? It was freaky. According to Tiffany, she couldn't move properly or drink water, and Dylan had to half drag her away. She ended up going to the hospital in the middle of the night! And the hospital didn't help, either. It just kind of got better while she waited the two hours in the hospital. Basically, it was terrible. Very scary.
Casino Night was relatively interesting. We went around annoying people until they paid us to go away. We would also sing the llama song and people actually paid us for singing it because they thought it was interesting. But as the night went on, they had less money on them and were less willing to give it out. Our group didn't make too much money - $52,450... Unfortunately, we started off with less than everyone else because Val said she needed some money too (and that her money = our money because she's our RA) which turned out to be false because she gave a lot of it away. Otherwise we might have earned a lot more. The Physics guys got 170,000. -.- How unfair. Anyways, we didn't get much of a good prize. Got Jamba Juice. And it wasn't paid for, either, which makes the prize totally pointless. But we just wanted to get out of there...
Non-mandatory Fun was better this time. Went to Napoleon Dynamite but the sound didn't work so we left for Spirited Away. Good movie. In Japanese, too. Miyazaki~~~ After that, played some Art of War and that was the end of that. We did go to Ralphs again, though, and I renewed my junk food supply.
Third week
Art of War for a weekly. Pretty fun. CHAAAAARGE!!! But it doesn't compare to the stuff described in Ender's Game. I took to running in the mornings. Sunken Gardens is huge. 6 laps was definitely more than a mile. Maybe even two. Anyways, on one of the days I had that plus Art of War plus Superman Tag... and I nearly died that night from soreness. But then at least I stay fit. And it gives me more of an appetite. Cafeteria food = bleh x.x I seriously missed Asian food while I was there.
Wednesday: The Greek final exam! Aaaaah~ Actually, I didn't do too bad. I did sidewalk art for daily that day and scribbled everywhere. It even says "Adela was here" in the middle of the fountain. I have lots of pictures... I should upload them all onto a photobucket album. Anyways, where was I? Oh, there were two "dance party during social time" rewards that took place at night. It was more like social time with music, though. Debra and Tiffany didn't go. Stayed up in their room plotting a conspiracy (which turned out to be pathetic)
Thursday: Too much class. We watched a movie, though, so that was cool. No activities that day. Packing. Except I didn't actually pack till the next morning because I had to pack my blanket before I could pack anything else. The last dance was the best. Music was good and we all had fun (I hope). Debra and Tiffany revealed their conspiracy - singing background music while me/Del or Eliza/Dylan danced, which completely failed because they either forgot or underestimated the actual slow dance music that's playing in the background anyways. Tiff refused to pair up during the slow dances (even Stairway!) and stole our cameras and took pictures instead. Produced some interesting results. Slow dances aren't meant for picture taking~ The flash blinds people, and the pictures turn out weird. Just look at this one:
Debra's arm is gigantic. And the flash reflects off them so the whole picture just looks weird. Most of the pictures during a dance turn out like that. How sad.
Then the dance ended, I got a duct-tape rose (duct-tape comes in white?), we got our yearbooks (why do they call them YEARbooks?), admired various people's drawing skills, looked at the pictures, and held our half-sleepover thing. Everyone was there and we played "Never have I ever" and "Truth or Dare" into the night. All of it is not to leave the room, but I can say that we had the weirdest of questions. Truth: If you had to eat one of the people in this room, who would you eat and why?
Yes, it was very random. And I guess some of this shouldn't go under Thursday because it carried over to Friday but whatever.
and when it's over, it's been no time at all.
I got home yesterday and saw Ping Pong, the new hamster. Gorged myself on good Asian food and played with all my pets. And I was very happy until my grandma came and asked, "So, when would you like to have the next Chinese lesson?" And when my parents remarked, "That's right, we'd better call your cello teacher."
.......Yeah, I guess I'm really home now. Have to slip back into home life.......
But at least there'll be a Totoro party!
Ah, I KNOW I haven't said everything I wanted to say, but I've had this window open since like 11am and I'm still not done with it.... so I better just finish it...
It's amazing how much can be crammed into a short three weeks. And when you come back, nothing changes. Life goes on. But something inside... it's different. And you're never quite the same again.
when you arrive, you never left.
while you're here, it lasts forever.
All these personalities I've got to know, all that bonding... it hit me on the plane. I'll never see most of them again. I knew that, but while we were still at CTY and talking and signing yearbooks saying "I'll miss you so much!" it wasn't real. I didn't realize how much I would miss them. But when the plane finally took off I looked out the window and saw L.A. receding before my eyes BAM the sudden realization tore me apart inside out and I ended up crying on the plane although nobody noticed because I didn't want them to.
Nicole lives in Arizona. I doubt I'll ever see her again. I'll never talk to her in person again. The food, the Hebrew, the beef jerky.....
Christine talked to me online yesterday. But it's not the same.
...and Allison and Jaanhvi and Romy and Ashley and Jessica, the 12-year old 15-year old, I'll probably talk to all of them online but it's different. It won't be the same. It can't be the same. It'll never be the same again. Because there's no regaining the past.
The first day
Left home and flew to L.A. with Elizabeth and Debra. Had to pay an extra $20 each because we were "unaccompanied minors." Should've told them I was 15. When we got there we sat in the bus for the longest time because it circled round and round for nearly an HOUR picking up other CTY kids. We thought we'd miss the icebreakers except there were no icebreakers. Val was sick. So we threw a party instead. Much more efficient than some silly icebreaker game. By some weird chance or the other, my prediction that Elizabeth and I might be roommates proved accurate. We weren't even taking the same class. Kinda scary....
Met everyone, remet Ashley, and helped tape up "We love sugar and nerds." Rest of the day was mostly boring.
The second day
Met our classmates (remet Yong, ironically enough), and things pretty much settled down. Met Debra and Tiffany's roomates (Lynelle and Cordy... or wait, was it Curie? Crap, I keep confusing the two of them). Played frisbee during break, and one of them got on the roof. Nathan threw it. Security guard got it back down, eventually.
Overall first week
Uneventful. Met a number of new people. Also met a few people from last year. Did Arts and Crafts for a weekly and made two friendship bracelets and a lanyard. Played frisbee, freeze tag, frisbee again (I think), and something else... can't remember.
First dance
Pretty fun. Tiffany's a good dancer. I'm glad she came to CTY. Hollywood theme - was feeling self-conscious and went down in just jeans and a shirt, but halfway through it got really hot in the jeans, so I ended up running back up Desmond (so convenient) and changing into a skirt.
First weekend
Went to Ralphs. Albertsons closed. =( But Ralphs was cool. Non-mandatory fun was pretty boring. Did some frisbee, did some trench, went around and talked, cards... yeah.
Water Day was fun, though. Held in Sunken Gardens this year. Stayed in the wet zone the whole time and got thoroughly soaked (and sunburned), but that's okay. Went around spraying random peeps (deja vu~). Got into a water fight with Del while my friends unceremoniously ditched me for food. They helped me when they came back, but they went overboard so I, in turn, unceremoniously backstabbed them.
...t'was all in good fun.
Second week
Music Practice for weekly. Too many pianists. 'Twas terrible. Ah, but had I known what Max was planning for the talent show, I don't think I would have minded so much. The talent show was pretty good, for the most part. Some acts (like the serenade) were not so good, but others were greatly entertaining. The Medley was awesome. Max has mad piano skills. He went through half the songs in the dance. People rushed down to bow down to him at the end of it..... I wish they hadn't riled the people up so much, though, saying that the most enthusiastic RA group would recieve a prize. They nearly deafened me, and they kept standing up and cheering and running around so much that I couldn't see.
For dailies I did Spongeball, Duck Hunt (they forgot the supplies so we ended up doing cloudwatching, though there were no clouds, and me, Dylan, plus a few others slipped incognito into How to be a Central American Dictator), Capture the Flag (way too many people), and Olde Fashione Dodgeballe. (I thought it would be an everyone-for-themselves game except it turned out to be basically Trench without the trench...)
Drag day was incredibly funny (though Joe's clothing felt more like giant PJs than drag), Quan was uncannily feminine, and many guys wore skirts. Never managed to catch a pic of Quan though. A pity. But I'm sure my friends have plenty...
Second dance was not fun. They gave "song requests" and people requested many slow fast songs. At least, that's what it seemed like. And they didn't play Toma. (MUEVELO MUEVELO SIN PARA!!!) They should choose better songs out of the stupid requests next time. Although sk8er boi wasn't bad. Still. Only the last 1/4 of it was any fun. And I danced to Stairway this time. Except that was pretty much destroyed, too, by guilt pressure, when we found out that Elizabeth had a... nerve inflammation? During the train during "It's the end of the world as we know it" something happened to her. More accurately her nerve. Her hands got numb and the numbness moved... up her arm? It was freaky. According to Tiffany, she couldn't move properly or drink water, and Dylan had to half drag her away. She ended up going to the hospital in the middle of the night! And the hospital didn't help, either. It just kind of got better while she waited the two hours in the hospital. Basically, it was terrible. Very scary.
Casino Night was relatively interesting. We went around annoying people until they paid us to go away. We would also sing the llama song and people actually paid us for singing it because they thought it was interesting. But as the night went on, they had less money on them and were less willing to give it out. Our group didn't make too much money - $52,450... Unfortunately, we started off with less than everyone else because Val said she needed some money too (and that her money = our money because she's our RA) which turned out to be false because she gave a lot of it away. Otherwise we might have earned a lot more. The Physics guys got 170,000. -.- How unfair. Anyways, we didn't get much of a good prize. Got Jamba Juice. And it wasn't paid for, either, which makes the prize totally pointless. But we just wanted to get out of there...
Non-mandatory Fun was better this time. Went to Napoleon Dynamite but the sound didn't work so we left for Spirited Away. Good movie. In Japanese, too. Miyazaki~~~ After that, played some Art of War and that was the end of that. We did go to Ralphs again, though, and I renewed my junk food supply.
Third week
Art of War for a weekly. Pretty fun. CHAAAAARGE!!! But it doesn't compare to the stuff described in Ender's Game. I took to running in the mornings. Sunken Gardens is huge. 6 laps was definitely more than a mile. Maybe even two. Anyways, on one of the days I had that plus Art of War plus Superman Tag... and I nearly died that night from soreness. But then at least I stay fit. And it gives me more of an appetite. Cafeteria food = bleh x.x I seriously missed Asian food while I was there.
Wednesday: The Greek final exam! Aaaaah~ Actually, I didn't do too bad. I did sidewalk art for daily that day and scribbled everywhere. It even says "Adela was here" in the middle of the fountain. I have lots of pictures... I should upload them all onto a photobucket album. Anyways, where was I? Oh, there were two "dance party during social time" rewards that took place at night. It was more like social time with music, though. Debra and Tiffany didn't go. Stayed up in their room plotting a conspiracy (which turned out to be pathetic)
Thursday: Too much class. We watched a movie, though, so that was cool. No activities that day. Packing. Except I didn't actually pack till the next morning because I had to pack my blanket before I could pack anything else. The last dance was the best. Music was good and we all had fun (I hope). Debra and Tiffany revealed their conspiracy - singing background music while me/Del or Eliza/Dylan danced, which completely failed because they either forgot or underestimated the actual slow dance music that's playing in the background anyways. Tiff refused to pair up during the slow dances (even Stairway!) and stole our cameras and took pictures instead. Produced some interesting results. Slow dances aren't meant for picture taking~ The flash blinds people, and the pictures turn out weird. Just look at this one:
Debra's arm is gigantic. And the flash reflects off them so the whole picture just looks weird. Most of the pictures during a dance turn out like that. How sad.
Then the dance ended, I got a duct-tape rose (duct-tape comes in white?), we got our yearbooks (why do they call them YEARbooks?), admired various people's drawing skills, looked at the pictures, and held our half-sleepover thing. Everyone was there and we played "Never have I ever" and "Truth or Dare" into the night. All of it is not to leave the room, but I can say that we had the weirdest of questions. Truth: If you had to eat one of the people in this room, who would you eat and why?
Yes, it was very random. And I guess some of this shouldn't go under Thursday because it carried over to Friday but whatever.
and when it's over, it's been no time at all.
I got home yesterday and saw Ping Pong, the new hamster. Gorged myself on good Asian food and played with all my pets. And I was very happy until my grandma came and asked, "So, when would you like to have the next Chinese lesson?" And when my parents remarked, "That's right, we'd better call your cello teacher."
.......Yeah, I guess I'm really home now. Have to slip back into home life.......
But at least there'll be a Totoro party!
Ah, I KNOW I haven't said everything I wanted to say, but I've had this window open since like 11am and I'm still not done with it.... so I better just finish it...
