The last and best
Aug. 28th, 2005 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chu_totoroThe last week...
WHAT I MISSED
Yes, I thought I was thorough but apparently I was not. There’s still the missing activity, and there were several things that were worth mentioning which I completely forgot about. My good friends pointed them out for me. =)
First, some time in that last week I had a notebook conversation with Christine. And plenty of random doodles. Yes, it was about Del. No, it had nothing important in it. Not much content. Most of it was randomness. But because I refused to show it to Eliza, everyone then wanted to see it and made a big deal out of it. Stole my notebook, had a mini-game of tag while they passed the notebook off continuously (I miss the old tag days... it kind of died in middle school...), teachers and TAs started hollering for their classes because it was time to go, they gave the notebook back without looking at it, and Christine helped me eradicate the conversation. End of story. =D
Second, some time in the same week there was a fight over my... pencil pouch. The blue one that my grandma made. The one with Tiffany’s gift - an onion themed mechanical pencil - in it. Onions! They resorted to dirty tactics. >> (i.e. Holding it up high so no one could reach it just because he’s tall.) They also threw it around a lot. I think it primarily started because I was throwing and catching it out of boredom, and someone reached over and snitched it before I could catch it. More chasing, more fun, did.... stuff. Mm. Until classes started.
....and how did I neglect to mention this?! Harleen, who had previously been a commuter, decided to move in. Since Christine’s roommate, Kyong-Rin, got sick and never arrived, she took over that room. And thus we had 10 people in our hall instead of 9.
We also happened to get Thai food some time last weekend. Saturday, I think. Everyone congregated in Whelan courtyard and we ordered along with the Etymology guys and certain other people. Witnessed Nathan and others throw a frisbee straight into the window of a girl’s bathroom (Desmond). Played much cards, tried to learn AmPie lyrics from Nicole (but failed because of Harleen), observed Quan’s eerie twinlikeness to Jessica, and talked much. Nicole covered for me on the food; I had only a $100 dollar bill left, and I paid her back after I got change from Ralphs.
MONDAY
Woke up early in the morning, got dressed, looked out the window, waited for some people other than me to arrive at Sunken Gardens, went out, joined them, and ran. I didn’t know what possessed me, on Sunday night, to suddenly tell Val I’d run. We had a hall meeting and she just mentioned the running, and Allison volunteered and she asked around to make sure Allison was the only one... and at the end of the hall meeting I just kind of blurted out “I’ll run.” So it was. Running supposedly starts at 6:15, though the people were there at more like 6:20.
There were very, very few people. A guy from Rosecrans, two girls from Doheny who looked like siblings or at least close friends, another girl from Doheny, the RA... and me. That’s it. And the RA didn’t run, so it was really just the five of us. And we just ran. I did... a lot of laps around Sunken Gardens. On a side note, Sunken Gardens is huge. >< Okay, so I didn’t do that many laps overall, but I ran maybe 2 miles. And when you haven’t really exercised much at all and you suddenly run two miles, the results aren’t so pleasing. Actually okay most of the day, but got very sore at night. Sad...
They didn’t really tell us when to stop running. Everyone just kind of... dispersed. And I saw everyone dispersed, so I just headed back to Desmond and a cleaning lady opened the door for me. I suppose I should have checked out with the RA first, but I wasn’t really paying attention to that.
Breakfast, classes... in class last week we had finished the Latin exam and were moving on to Greek. To our surprise, the final Latin exam was the “final review” section in the workbook. We finished it, turned it in... Then our teacher ordered us to rip out the “final review” (Greek) section in the workbook, now that we knew for sure it would be the Greek exam. Then he ordered us to rip out pages in the very back of the workbook. We flipped to the very back.... and there were the answers. To every single workbook page. Including the final review we just did. KYAAAAA~ We all felt incredibly stupid after that, but it was too late. Now that we knew about it, we had to rip out the answers to the Greek exam and hand it to him...
We also visited the library more often. We were going through select bits of interesting literature like Beowulf, and then the teacher would have us highlight interesting words. Then we’d have to look up the etymology, definitions, previous meanings, alternate spellings... whatever. And write it down in our “word journal.” We had to use the OED, the “Oxford English Dictionary,” mother of all dictionaries, and that’s what we did. The library had the entire dictionary set, naturally, but when we finished looking up words directly from the dictionary... We could go to “www.oed.com” and look there.
So, basically, after we finished our work with the written dictionaries, we were granted internet access. Hahahaha...
Weekly was Art of War. Everyone was there. Tiff, Deb, Eliza, Dylan, Del, Louis, Dawn... everyone. It wasn’t as fun as the short few Art of War games we played during NMF2, though. They split us into four teams. Me, Eliza, Deb, and Tiff were all in Dylan’s team! Yay! I think the muffinmen were on Dawn’s team, and I don’t know the people in the other teams, really. The only one I recognize is blue-shirt kid (Jasper?) who attempted to negotiate a treaty with us several times and got backstabbed.
With four teams, it became more of two one-on-one games. We won once, I think. I don’t quite remember. I do recall finding out that it was based on Ender’s Game, thinking back into the details of that awesome book, and thinking to myself that it was not even close to what’s described in the book. And to anyone who hasn’t read that book - it’s a must read. You have to read it. You DO!!
Daily was spongeball. Eliza, Deb, and Tiff were all there. Unfortunately, they had only 5 sponges. Maybe 6. According to them, someone stole all the other sponges, but I think they just couldn’t find them. Who would want anything with a million sponges?
It was still fun, despite their major lackage of sponges. That also meant that if no one threw a sponge for a minute, the other side might actually run out of sponges to throw. Great fun. Once I actually managed to peg Alex straight in his front, when he wasn’t paying attention to me and neglected to dodge. Unfortunately, after some time some idiot threw a pathetic throw right at him and he caught it. And got back up. And then he destroyed me with one of his killing frisbee-style throws. X.x Painful.
The lack of sponges meant that you couldn’t get ahold of a sponge a lot of the time, but not on certain circumstances. For example, when our team was losing and most people were down. And our team was losing quite often, so if I managed to be one of the few people living, I could have great fun claiming many sponges and chucking them at the other team. Very wet business. There was one girl who had done spongeball for a weekly as well, and she was thoroughly soaked. Apparently they had a free-for-all with the hose right afterwards.
Nothing memorable in study hall or social time. Or dinner, for that matter. Eliza and I had more roommate chats...
Edit: Thanks to Eliza for clarifying this... ‘tis worth a slight mention - lanyard fight with Del right before study hall. For some reason he did Friendship Bracelets for a daily and made a lanyard. Chet made some as well, but I think he did that earlier. Like during NMF2. Combination of pink and clear... actually looks pretty cool.
TUESDAY
Woke up early in the morning again, dressed, and looked out the window. No one was there. Saw Harleen awake when I went to the bathroom, and decided to stay in my room and wait. At around 6:10 Harleen headed out to Sunken Gardens. She hung around for a very long time. It was past 6:15. That’s when I began to regret not signing out with the RA yesterday. They must have decided that they wouldn’t be doing this any longer (since not enough people were running) and neglected to tell me because I hadn’t bothered to go up to them.
After a long while, it seemed like Harleen had left Sunken Gardens, though I hadn’t heard her return to her room, and I decided to go down... for whatever stupid reason. I guess it was just early and I was the only one awake and couldn’t really go to sleep.
It turns out Harleen didn’t go back. She tried, but she was locked out of Desmond. Then she followed me to Sunken Gardens attempting to strike up conversation. I didn’t feel like conversation, so I started running. It worked. She attempted to follow me, but after some time was reduced to walking along the edge of Sunken Gardens because she couldn’t catch up. This made me very happy, so I kept running (and keeping an eye on her) until she eventually gave up and returned to Desmond. Score! By then I’d ran over a mile, so I decided to head back as well.
Apparently the cleaning ladies were either slacking off and not cleaning or ignoring Harleen or just, for some reason, not hearing her, because when I got there she was still locked out of Desmond. I pounded on the door twice or thrice, realized that I was kind of out of breath, then began walking ‘round the edge of Rosecrans Courtyard to, well, walk it off. For some unfathomable reason Harleen followed my example and began circling after me. Then a cleaning lady arrived, she cried out in joy, abandoned her dutiful, er, circles, and rushed to the door. I followed suit.
We went upstairs, I woke Elizabeth up, and we went down to breakfast, classes, all that stuff. I think we may have gone to the library again during class. Much Tengwar-copying, myspace-creating (Christine tried to add Romy to her newly-made myspace, and added Will instead), livejournal-checking, and general fun ensued. We were all masters at our art; the teacher was completely oblivious. However, he did get mad at Jessica and Robert’s blatant show of PDA: sitting together in one seat. (Actually, Robert had stolen Jessica’s seat and she tried to sit on him to get him off and it somehow ended up like that.) Fun stuff.
Art of War again. Same teams, save one group which splintered and merged with the other teams so that there were only three teams. I still say it wasn’t as fun as the very first game I played in NMF2. We switched locations a few times, just to be fair. I brought my camera and took a number of pictures while we were waiting around, or when I was dead. After some time I decided to leave it under a tree, because it proved a hindrance when dodging. Then lots of jacket were tossed under the tree along with it. Apparently we have decided to choose thought commanders other than Dylan (he’s still the team captain, though; it seems commandeering is unrelated to team-captainism), and after our thought commander went out and showed herself to the other teams, she came back and there was a mad jacket scramble in which many people switched jackets. That might have worked, except the fact that we were out in the open and all the other teams could see exactly what we were doing. Then eventually most people ditched their jackets, and they ended up piled upon my unfortunate camera.
Well, that jacket tactic didn’t work. We tried again. There were two similar looking girls, and after one waved her arm about proving that she was thought commander, they switched jackets. But one girl was wearing shorts and the other pants. So the whole plan went POOF because the other teams didn’t even bother looking at the jackets.
I remember being thought commander once. The other team played a cheap trick. They said they killed the thought commander, so my whole team sat down, and THEN they killed me. They had not gotten me. I clearly remember jumping backwards while dodging and then falling over Debra who had sat down behind me which seriously irked her but also somehow prevented me from getting tagged. Cheaters. (Did anyone catch that previous sentence?)
M’well, Robbie decided it didn’t count and let our whole team get back up. Yay for him.
I did Superman Tag for a daily. And surprisingly enough, nearly everyone else was doing it as well. (Namely Eliza, Deb, Tiff, Allison, many muffinmen since Christian was there... then Alex, blue-shirt guy, black-shirt kid, fast fat kid, indian guy, and a number of other people I recognize but don’t know the names of). We spent a while lounging on the walls while Joseph randomly pushed people off. Took some pictures, observed Boris and Sean chasing each other around over a sweater... yeah.
When everyone was signed in, they signalled and we all headed back to Sunken Gardens, to the exact spot we just came from. Tiffany actually brought her tape recorder along, and she and Deb were attempting to play “romance music” in the background? (They’ve been doing this for a while; whenever Eliza/Dylan or me/Del walked together, they’d start singing...) Except it came out really crackly and messed up. Then, I forget the reason, but Deb and I went kind of crazy and we linked arms and skipped almost the rest of the way there. Then she fell back and four of them linked arms and did the same thing and I decided to stay out of their way.
Superman Tag turned out to be freeze tag, pretty much. Except to unfreeze someone you have to crawl between their legs. I personally don’t see how it has to do with superman, but they have their explanation. When you’re frozen, you stand there with your legs apart, right? So they say if you put one hand on your hips and punch the air with your other hand, you’re striking a superman pose. That was pretty funny, because after they said it everyone would literally strike a “superman pose” when they were frozen.
This time they acted like intelligent people and set boundaries for a small space, so we didn’t have the terrible, boundary-less games like week one’s Freeze Tag. The first round or two, they only chose two its, so I survived without much trouble. Then they decided that they were being too hard on the its so the number increased to three. That was more difficult, and much running rendered me out of breath, so I decided to stand there and catch my breath when someone finally tagged me. A lot of people kept asking if I wanted to be saved. It was annoying. One kid would not get it. He asked like seven times. “Are you frozen?” “Do you want to be saved?” “Wait, are you frozen?” It was rather irritating.
Interestingly enough, after a certain amount of running, I would not really get out of breath any more. Kind of like my body snapped into a “running about” mode. That was very helpful, as is acting frozen. If the it is too fast for you, freeze, and sometimes they would pass within an inch of you and not notice. They chase the fleeing prey. =P It was pretty funny. If you bolt right after the it has passed you (so they can’t really stop and turn around to chase you), you elicit all sorts of interesting responses. Mostly they just shout after you. (“Hey!”) But once or twice an it would attempt to turn around to chase you instead, which just doesn’t work out. By the time they’ve turned around, you’re already a safe distance away, and they’ve also just lost whoever they were previously pursuing. I once thoroughly confused... brunette girl? ...with the above tactic.
It was lots of fun. Almost the entire “tag” group from school was there. Though it’s been a long time since we’ve played tag. So sad. Elementary school... Harker structures... “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah”... the million versions of tag.... all the stuff that we invented... I think these days are gone forever. ;_;
I think everyone took turns being it. Deb and Tiff were both its at some point. I know I was. Del and Louis tried their “sexy poses,” and failed miserably... When Allison was frozen, she kept attempting to block me. But she just stuck out her arms. Blue-shirt kid actually purposely moved in my way and successfully prevented me from chasing the other people because I had to pause and veer off so I didn’t crash into him. Speaking of that, when Eliza was it she crashed into Boris and the three of them (including Tiff) all fell in a pile. Rather entertaining. I caught some pictures while I was frozen. Video clips, too...
After that I don’t recall anything interesting. If there’s something worth mentioning, tell me and I’ll add it in.
WEDNESDAY
Did all the morning stuff (no running today because it was sprinkling in the morning); some antisocial guy attempted to give me his ticket to the informal dance party. Found myself eating more food because I’d actually exercised somewhat. Naturally, there was still a store of goldfish back at Desmond.
In class I believe we watched Much Ado About Nothing. Enormously funny... some parts. Benedick and Beatrice were hilarious. Hero and Claudio less so. Keanu Reeves looks weird with a beard. And he’s still not a very good actor, although that contributed to certain humorous moments.
Also must mention that this week Christine, Eli, and Nicole got me into Mao. Funfunfuuuun. Point of Order. Have a nice day. Have a very nice day. *knock* It’s sunny; have a very VERY nice day. *knock knock* Oh lord, have a very very VERY nice day! *knock knock knock* Last card. Adriatic Sea! Elvis has left the building. ...failure to poke the person to your left. It’s a MOOSE, Mao!
Ahahahahaha... My class has managed to lose the majority of my frisbees by this time, and we were reduced to playing with only the crappy PetsMart frisbee, so I ended up playing Mao instead. At the end of the session the four of us vowed not to teach anybody else our version of Mao and not to play it until we have a get-together. Someday Nicole will fly over from Arizona! She will! If she doesn’t, I’ll fly over there instead. >>
Nothing interesting of note ‘til Art of War... This Art of War was slightly different from the others. They introduced the use of playing cards.
A = Highest attack card
2 = Thought Commander
3 = Scout
4 = Lowest attack card; can kill Aces
The rest is self-explanatory. You can kill people who have a lower card than you; if you have the same card you both die; anyone can kill the Thought Commander; no one can kill the scout, though they can kill each other. Dodgeballs kill everyone except scouts, but only certain cards may handle a dodgeball - Scouts cannot, and neither can people with face-cards. Just touching the dodgeball of another team could kill you, so you had to be careful when running about; if you accidentally tripped over a ball it was over. ;_;
I was a face card several times, I think. A queen, then jack, and even Ace, once (Unfortunately, when I was Ace I ran into another Ace and we both died). I was Thought Commander once, too. Most of our group feigned death and Deb and I had lots of fun doing cartwheels until Dawn’s group came over and tapped us each on the shoulder to make sure we were dead. >> I should’ve bolted. I might have lived for a bit.
I’d rather have been able to tag people, though. Thought Commanders can’t harm anyone. Anyone can kill them, and they can’t even move without someone nearby. And the boundaries there were too small. It’s not like Harker, where I can run across the blacktop, through X garden, around the PE building through the Friendship Garden, across the blacktop once more, and possibly even onto the field to throw the three or four its off my trail (Ah, good ol’ hide-and-go-seek-tag...). Naturally it’s much easier if there’s someone else the its are after as well, because if I’m the only one.... well, they’d never be thrown off trail. And eventually they’ll catch me unless I manage to hold out ‘til recess ends. And unfortunately enough for Thought Commanders, they will be the main target especially if another team dies, and there are infinitely more than just 3-4 people chasing them.
Mm. Now I miss the Harker campus (Saratoga one). We did play tag in middle school, too.... But I don’t think we will in high school. The “tag” group is thoroughly split...
Anyways, that was pretty much how AoW went on Wednesday. Chased Del around a palm tree (but failed to catch him) when I was either a jack or queen, slaughtered a few people the next game, stayed back to protect the Thought Commander when I was a 10 (under Dylan’s orders), got killed when I was Thought Commander, destroyed some people in protecting various Thought Commanders.... relatively fun. There were also, of course, a number of games in which the Thought Commander died much too early and I had to sit down along with the rest of the team. That was when Deb and I first started doing cartwheels and flips and stuff - we were bored.
Did Sidewalk Art for daily. The last of the activities. I should have done it earlier. People appreciated my work for... about two days. Then they all left camp and all my masterpieces were probably eradicated. Not that I drew much. Spent much time using many different shades of chalk to label the Doheny fountain “The Fountain of Youth,” then added “(has dried up)” because it felt appropiate. Also vandalized the inside of the fountain with an “Adela was here.” They filled it the next day. I wonder if my comment had anything to do with it. And the “Adela was here” survived, despite the water.
Scribbled “Annie.is.the.best.RA.ever.SIETE!!” in the same spot as last year, then realized that “best” should have been “most.awesome”... Too late. So I screwed up the countoff. Not that anyone would notice. Alison might; she was in our hall last year and I think still has a Doheny room this year, but I’m not sure she remembers that. Later added an arrow saying “and Val,” just for good measure.
Got a yellow piece of chalk and drew a sun, then noticed that someone had written FMA all over in the most random places, though mostly smudged and fading. Renewed all of them, then remembered “Force = Mass x Acceleration,” became very irritated, grabbed more chalk and wrote out “Full Metal Alchemist” in calligraphy. No physics shall ruin that. Then I heard a shout and turned to see Christine and Nicole waving their arms about. Gave them a thumbs up and left for more chalk.
After that I was at a loss for what to draw, and ended up writing in bright blue letters “Watch Miyazaki Movies.” Then Eliza ditched Act Weird with Jake and Val - held in Sullivan - and I showed her my beautiful masterpieces. She spent much time taking pictures. Debra and Tiffany also came running, but they, unlike the smart Eliza, had neglected to ask permission before coming, and thus ran back and forth several times before actually joining us.
When they did I showed them around as well, only to discover that someone had rudely vandalized my “Watch Miyzaki Movies,” crossing out “Miyazaki Movies” and changing it to “Arrested Development.” And even when we were there, she shamelessly continued her vandalism... which thoroughly vexed me. So I drew an arrow pointing to her words, and wrote a small, vehement paragraph explaining the rudeness of crossing things out and the beauty of arrows. After that it was time to go, so I stole two pieces of chalk and left, chatting with others about various activities.
At dinner Eliza and I grabbed a window seat - the type that seats only two people. We talked a bit; mostly just ate... when I saw Christine, Nicole, and Joyce walking down below. Well, I waved, and Christine waved back. Then Eliza noticed, and she waved with me, and Nicole and Joyce (seeing Christine) waved at us as well. Then Nicole started doing some sign language that I unfortunately couldn’t understand. I knew it was sign language, though. Our whole hall has been somewhat into sign language ever since Ashley came in one day and taught us how to say “I want pretty boy penis” in sign language, naturally. I think sign language was a weekly activity? Anyways, Christine, less skilled in that form of communication, started doing YMCA instead. It was very entertaining. We made random signs back at them... weird faces, odd gestures... lots of mindless arm-waving. I think this one group of guys thought we were crazy.
Random side note: I also made use of my two pieces of chalk and wrote “Adela was here” in a corner on the floor of the place... where the picnic tables are. I wonder if anyone noticed.
Social time was not social time. It was the two informal dance parties where only people with “tickets” should be. Of course, everyone ignored that and went to it anyways. What fun is a dance party with only two RA groups? It was pretty boring, though. Held in Whelan Courtyard and behind Doheny... we stuck to the one by Whelan. We being Eliza and I. Deb and Tiff were nowhere to be found. We thought they’d probably gone to the Doheny party, since Tiff lives in Doheny, but we were too lazy to go over there and check. In any case, it was rather boring. Didn’t have good songs, wasted a large chunk of time looking about for Deb/Tiff (Joseph actually went to Doheny to find Deb), and it was mostly just... social time with music in the background. And a few hardcore people dancing.
Louis followed Joseph, I think, or half-followed him, but eventually they came back because there was no sign of Debra anywhere. Odd. Later on we found the two of them hiding out in Debra’s room plotting a conspiracy. Debra was completely unaware of the dance party. How un-Debraish of her. I actually didn’t really know about it either, but I remembered a random dance like this last year, and what with the guy attempting to give me a “ticket” and the casino night stuff... two and two make four.
On a random note, Elizabeth pointed out to me Jess + Robert cuddling in the bushes, except I couldn’t see them - I thought that the dark blob WAS part of the bushes - and then they moved and gave me a scare because they looked like... a moving blob. A split second later I realized they were Jessica and Robert. But yeah... odd moment...
Nothing much happened back at Desmond. Eliza and I were pointedly not calling our parents because we were spiteful at... the fast-approaching end of CTY, I suppose.
Oh, this might’ve been the night... Eliza and I were hanging out and chatting roommate talk when we heard a screaming noise that sounded uncannily like an alarm. We rushed out to discover that Val had bodily hoisted Ashley up and was carrying her on her shoulder like a piece of baggage (for some unknown reason). I swear, Ashley screams at a constant rate. “AIEEEEE” *pause* “AIEEEEE” *pause* “AIEEEEE” *pause* “AIEEEEE”... you get the point. Exactly like a fire alarm...
Well, that gave us a good laugh...
THURSDAY
The morning was okay. It was the first beginnings of shirt-signing. Jessica was going ‘round having people sign her jeans, so I decided to get people to sign my CTY shirt. ‘Twas a good idea. Now it’s memorable and worthy of dress, whereas before it most probably would have been stowed away in some corner and never touched again. I brought it down for Debra to sign, and she began writing a message around the seams that was incredibly long and took forever. Almost made me late to breakfast. I’ll relate the message here since on my shirt it’ll eventually fade and the words may become unreadable.
“Hey DELL-a! It was great this session. Had so much fun ^-^. Ah... the memories... 1 day I will get how to play Mao! Nyanyanyanya. Meep! Me + Tiff have a surprise for u and we’re working our butts off so you’d better enjoy it. And you can remember it always by reading this shirt. HAPPY. Well this kinda sorta friend reunion was so totally awesum, hopefully we can have some more *cough-starfox-cough* Miss ya lots >< & have fun w/Dell!!! ^^”
.....she wrote a paragraph.... Geez. That’s probably why it took so long.
Ate lots of sugar cubes and watched “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” in class. Based loosely on the Odyssey, extremely entertaining. A welcome break after the Greek final exam (which was terrible, by the way). Seating arrangements went as following: Almost all of the guys sitting in a row way at the back, Jess/Robert cuddling in their corner (left-front), me, Christine, and possibly Nicole sitting in the right-front, and Romy lying down in the very front. Eventually Christine, who had been glancing at Romy rather frequently, got up and joined her in the front of the room, on the floor. However, while Christine seemed to watch the movie, Romy apparently slept.
Halfway through, the Computer Science T.A. (CS was taking a test, apparently), tromped into our room and demanded us turn down the volume. Quite irritating. But reasonable. Eliza relates that halfway through their test they heard loud country music coming from our room: rather oO;; for them.
Played Mao during the breaks. It was either this day or Wednesday when the white frisbee was retrieved (the frisbee remained lost... ever since the first week), and we played, and it got on the roof of the other building. And there was no ladder leading up there. So there it stayed, and that’s where it probably still is now.
We still played with the PetsMart frisbee, despite its crappiness. I didn’t play Mao all the time. I totally owned at Three Flags Up... the frisbee got into the streets a few times, though. Nathan once chased it right onto the street and almost got run over by a car. Ben got massively angry and began yelling at him. Other than that, breaks were... fun. As usual.
There were no activities. We were supposed to “pack up.” Unfortunately, I could not pack anything ‘til my blanket, sheets, and pillow were in the suitcase. And I needed them for one more night. So I ended up not doing any packing whatsoever.
Actually, before that, we went on a long trek all across campus. Harleen, who had moved in, decided she needed a proper room key. So she could use it once or twice on the very last day and be happy. So we got Jamba Juice, then set out on our voyage, successfully killing an hour and forcing our whole hall to exercise - not necessarily a bad thing.
Edit: Some time before this, perhaps even Wednesday, Christine used one of the pieces of chalk I stole to show Nicole and I the Korean alphabet. Nicole could actually read some of it. We also doodled together in certain other places on the way back to Desmond.
When we returned, everyone started packing. As I could not, I stared out the window and depressed myself. Thoroughly. Then our hall agreed not to go to dinner and throw a junk food party instead. All of us, especially Nicole, still had fair amounts of junk food left, and we weren’t eager to take all of it with us tomorrow. I ended up not eating much because the junk food somewhat upsets my stomach.
Eliza and I visited Debra several times hoping to find out what her planned “surprise” was, but failed each time. Then everyone began dressing up for the dance. Black and white... not that people followed the theme, of course (well, some did. Nicole wore all white and looked stunningly... holy). The actual dance was rather colorful. I just happened to have a black skirt at hand, so I wore it (discovered later that Tiff wore the exact same thing! Hahaha). Still felt rather dejected, though, because I was thinking too much. When there’s nothing to do, I think, and when I think too much, I depress myself. It’s sad to know that CTY is about to end... and it was made all the more real when Val informed us that we had to strip down the “We *heart* Sugar + Nerds.” For a moment we stared at her like she was crazy. Then we fought, and won, and she agreed to let us keep it up for the dance.
Well, that only made me gloomier. There was still some time before the dance so I started rolling up my clothing (to put into the suitcase tomorrow). Then someone shouted “Adela!” and I looked out the window to see Will on the sidewalk down below, looking gay and spirited, and... he started dancing on the sidewalk. oO;; I made a little You’re Weird gesture at him (where you point a finger at your head and go like @ with it?) and... he did it right back. Large-scale (like... full hand, instead of finger). Dance-mode. While jumping up and down like a crazed guitar player. Then he just kind of... waved, smiled, and left.
Odd, but it cheered me up considerably. Laughed very hard~
LAST DANCE
Black and white formal, Rosecrans courtyard. The last dance, and also the best. Of course, I was feeling rather depressed throughout the entire affair, so it rather toned down the… fun. Halfway through, Dylan actually asked, “Is it just me or do you always look kind of sad?” ><
The big circle problem persisted, though it wasn’t so bad as the Hollywood dance. Unfortunately, this time Debra kept splitting with Tiffany instead of me. ;_; Since they were in the “conspiracy” together, I suppose. I’d try to follow them, but it was useless. Unless you are the circle-splitter, it just doesn’t work. If I follow, the rest of the group follows me and I just end up in a big circle again and eventually the two of them split again...
In the beginning the two of them refused to come down. They were busy conspiring in Debra’s room. Or, as they later claimed, they were doing their hair. For about 20 minutes. Which was possible, I suppose.
The first thing we did was take a hall picture. Naturally it wasn’t the official one that showed up in the yearbook – just a group picture. Then we started forming the group circles and attempted to dance. However, as we were missing Debra, the main dance-starter person (aside from me), and Tiffany, who also helps us with that… I had a hard time getting people to start dancing. As usual, Lynnelle pretended to be a block of wood and set a wonderful example for other reluctant dancers…
We ended up running up and down Desmond a lot. We knew Deb and Tiff were in Deb’s room, and we went in with Lynnelle’s key, whereupon they started, pushed us out the door, and promised to be there in another 10 minutes. To be honest, they might really have spent all that time doing their hair (ribbons!). What a scary thought.
The conspirators joined us during the line dance. After that things rather continued as usual. Some muffinmen joined our big circles, and of course none of them were wearing anything black/white. >> Lots of excitement, dancing, and general fun. No song requests this time, resulting in actual good dance songs getting played...
People also threw rolls of toilet paper in the air which actually produced rather cool results, except the RAs stopped them after a while.
Slow dances: The first slow song was too early. I don't think anyone really danced except a few weird people. During the second slow song (Forever Young? So says Louis' LJ, though I can't remember) Eliza and I both respectively paired up with our counterparts, and thus discovered Deb + Tiff's conspiracy.
They spent all that time memorizing lyrics to what they considered “romantic background music” and they were going to sing the romance music while we danced (with the help of Tiffany’s tape recorder) - completely oblivious to the fact that the DJ would actually be playing a slow song in the background. Deb says they thought they could drown out the DJ. Well, they failed. I think they gave up halfway through and ran back for cameras and pictures instead. Annoying people. >>
Danced with Del for most of the remaining slow dances (aside from the times he was swept away by muffinmen group circles). Eliza/Dylan naturally did the same, and sadly enough, so did Deb/Louis, for the most part. I pitied Joseph, but... he never asked. So for that, at least, he had only himself to blame.
After a certain point lots of styrofoam bits and wet toilet paper got onto the grass. I’ve no idea where the styrofoam came from, but it was rather nasty to dance on. The two of us ended up agreeing to, er, kind of “slide” coordinatedly into the throng, where it was less disgusting... (That felt kind of stupid, but yeah.... we did that to avoid Tiffany, too ><)
Tiffany and Allison didn’t dance to any of the slow songs, I think. It was rather sad, especially seeing as it was the last dance. But they seemed happy enough. Tiff said she felt like a mother taking care of three children (the children being me, Deb, and Eliza). Yeah right. =refrains from saying... stuff= What kind of mother runs around eagerly taking blinding flash pictures of their children dancing with others (blinding their children and annoying them to no end in the process)? She was exceedingly irritating. Allison, at least, restrained herself to occasional sly remarks as she passed us while... threading through the dancers, I suppose. Tiff was just.... she didn’t even use her own camera. Eliza returned to Desmond that night to discover 5-6 extra pictures on her camera.
The slideshow was good. I liked it better than last year’s. About ten minutes before the slideshow, they started clearing people away from the front of the stage (and guess where we were), which resulted in all of us getting shoved back into a group of people and being very cramped. Then Deb + the others threaded their way out the back of the group and ran around, and Del/I tried to follow, except we kinda lost them in the throng of people. When we made our way out, they were long gone.
Eventually, after running around and randomly forcing our way back into the throng, we found Debra, along with some other people from the giant circle. They had made their way to the front-center, the best place to view the slideshow. >> They would...
The grass was wet; it made a wet spot on my skirt. Good thing I wore black. As for seating... Debra and Tiffany got a good seat in front, Del and I sat somewhat behind, Elizabeth and Dylan’s whereabouts were unknown, and the other circle people were scattered sparsely around.
This year I liked the actual slideshow a lot. More than last year’s, at any rate (though I don’t really remember what last year’s was like). There were many funny moments, and I applauded it more than once... Speaking of that, it was funny watching Del try to clap. He had one arm around me, so he had to reach the other arm waaaay over to achieve a few pathetic, weak claps. And eventually he gave up and started slapping his knee instead. oO;; But that was pretty random.
I showed up once or twice. There was this one shot in which we were all playing Egyptian Ratscrew, although I had no idea it was us until the very end of the shot, where Eliza’s face was clearly visible as she viciously slapped the pile. Also some other interesting videos... Christian’s hall chanting their Nemo chant, everybody picking up trash (speeded up about 10x), people rushing up to crowd Max (piano)... There was one frozen shot of someone getting water splashed on them, right before the water made contact. It looked very cool.
When it ended, a Nevermore went up and gave a speech beseeching us to respect American Pie and play by rules. Which made it very sad... It was also pretty violent. Hung on to Del and got... pushed by the mob of people to the edge.... then almost got knocked over when they charged. Scary experience.
Lots of half-singing (with help from Nicole), shouting ourselves hoarse, jumping, screaming, and, of course, dancing. Deb and I were both tired, but we had to keep it up ‘til the end, no? (This year we successfully took Cori’s place as most energetic...)
Then it just... ended. Del gave me the duct-tape rose, which admittedly didn’t look much like a rose unless you look at it from the top, but... ‘twas exceedingly awesome anyways. I also completely did not know that duct-tape came in different colors... >< I feel stupid now.
Well, shouted some more (Nobody loves you! We love you!), then tagged along to the Physics cheer and realized that Debra wasn’t there. Informed her afterwards, to her dismay (well, not really), and then it was really over. Goodbye hugs, farewells, then the RAs shooed us right up the stairs of Desmond.
THE LAST SLEEPOVER
After some dispute, the entire hall decided to hold a group sleepover in Ashley/Nicole’s room (the “Sugar + Nerds” room). Val agreed to turn a blind eye, so long as we kept the volume down. She also ordered us to strip the tape. ;_; It was incredibly saddening. Within moments, only empty windows remained where “We *heart* Sugar + Nerds” once proudly stood. It left us with an sizable tape-ball which we tossed about for a while, ‘til Val made us stop.
Elizabeth and I decided not to actually sleep over. We would hang out in their room until everyone else was pretty much asleep, then return to our room to actually sleep. She’s had enough of hot rooms, bumpy mattresses, and hard floors. Several other people adopted our suggestion and half the hall ended up doing the same.
We talked long into the night... Romy had brought blankets and a pillow which she set up on the floor by Ashley’s bed, and she ended up falling asleep almost immediately and missing most of the... chatter. Ashley slept on her bed, almost asleep yet almost awake, and was only half-conscious of our conversation. Elizabeth sat on the foot of her bed.
Nicole, ironically enough, had to sit on the floor and lean against a chair while Jessica claimed her bed. I sat on the foot of her bed, like Elizabeth. Christine sat scrunched by the door, whereas Harleen had brought sheets and blankets and settled down on the other side of the door. Allison was sitting somewhere else on the floor; I forgot where.
We also supplied plenty of food. The junk food party by no means took care of all of our junk food, and many people brought their remaining food hoping that it will be devoured before Friday.
We talked a lot that night. I can’t remember everything we talked about, but we talked a lot. Eventally, of course, it veered off into the traditional games of Never Have I Ever and Truth or Dare. Halfway into the game, it became quite obvious that Jessica was going to die first. She had the most fingers down, while Eliza and I (or was it Christine and I?) had the least. I would have remained the winner had not Eliza given some blatantly targeting statements solely to get me. But Jessica died, as predicted, though we didn’t really give her a good dare and I don’t think she followed through...
Truth or Dare was quite interesting. I used to be dare-only, but I reverted to truth this night, and so did everyone else except Jessica. It was a good thing, I suppose, since none of us had any good dares to give. They had all the normal prying questions, then some boring questions, then we ran out of questions and the questions started getting weirder and weirder. Perverted questions, food questions (from Nicole), and just random questions. Some of them were hilarious.
It continued late into the night until the majority of the people were ready to collapse. Some were asleep already. That’s when Elizabeth and I decided to retire to our room. Christine and Allison were still awake, and we invited them over to our room and the four of us talked some more. Actually, upon hitting her bed, Eliza fell into a half-slumber mode where she was somewhat aware of what we said (i.e. If we mentioned her/Dylan, she comes awake enough to mumble a “What?” and fall back to sleep) but didn’t participate in actual conversation. So it was just the three of us.
And we talked... all sorts of things, anything that came into our mind... We just talked, and listened, and kept the conversation going. Some time in it all I realized that I left my waterbottle in Ashley/Nicole’s room, so I went back to retrieve it. I saw a funny sight. Everyone was asleep, in the exact same position we had left them. Poor Nicole was sleeping up against the chair while Jessica drooled on her bed...
Tip-toed out of their room and returned to my own wonderful bed. Christine and Allison were still there. Well, they left briefly to retrieve their sheets and pillows and stuff because they were tired of sitting on the ground. We decided that we would try and pull an all-nighter together. There were only a few more hours to go, after all...
We might have succeeded. We really might have. If only it weren’t my room. If only it didn’t take place in my room and I wasn’t on my own bed with my own soft blanket and my own comfy pillow I could probably have made it through without falling asleep. Even if I had all of my stuff with me, if it weren’t my room and I wasn’t sleeping on my mattress I might have managed to stay awake. The mattress was the key, though it was a crappy. (I had a striped gray lumpy mattress and Eliza had a good blue mattress >>) Not that I normally notice its crappiness anyways...
Well, we kept at it for a while. We managed to kill another hour or so, at least a half-hour... But the moment I fell asleep it was over, because they can’t keep it up with just the two of them, so they each withdrew to their respective rooms, and our attempt failed.
FRIDAY
Slept only 3 hours or so, but got up in the morning feeling unnaturally awake. Found Christine in the same state. Proceeded to spend about half an hour stripping my side of the room and stuffing it all into my tiny little suitcase. The room looked very empty when I was done.
Most people were just beginning to stir when I peeped into Nicole’s room. Had poor Nicole slept against that chair the whole night?
Eventually most everyone woke up, and there was a flurry of activity as they all went about doing some last-minute packing. It was a sad sight, seeing all the suitcases and backpacks lined up out in the hallway and the rooms stripped completely clean.
Christine and I, along with others who had finished packing, hung out once again in Nicole/Ashley’s room. We stared out the window down at the masses of people turning in their key cards. Suitcases, backpacks, other baggage... a gloomy sight. I ended up delving into the yearbook instead (we had recieved them last night). The yearbook was well-made, and hard to get bored of.
We were late to breakfast. We were already late down to Rosecrans courtyard to turn in our key cards, and while there, we delayed ourselves even more with yearbook signing, shirt signing, jeans signing, contact-info giving, and other such activities.
Breakfast actually had decent sausages, or so says the people who ate them. What a surprise. They would improve on the very last day... We continued on with our activities, which led to us being late to class. But no one cared. Us Etymology people had purposely left our backpacks back at Desmond so none of us would have our text/workbooks so the teacher could not force us to do work. I did bring my shirt and yearbook, though, in a separate bag. And a pencil pouch.
Well, that turned out to be a wise decision because we found the muffinmen at breakfast (singing their theme song), as well as Etymology people (although I’d see them at class right after that), and there was even more shirt-signing. Finally, Val, who had come in late and was our primary reason of delay, decided that we couldn’t wait for her anymore. It was taking too long. So some other RA took us out, and we were dragged off to... class, unfortunately.
Class wasn’t so bad. We took the pretest again to see how much we’d improved (though he called it a posttest), and then we played the word game. Due to the bonus questions, our team was waaay behind the other team, so we decided to take a risk. The last bonus question ever... we wagered all of our points. It was our last shot at a miraculous recovery.
Naturally, we failed.
Final score 21 to 0. It was rather sad...
When the game ended, Ben gave us a piece of posterboard and markers. We had to make a sign or poster of some sort for Etymologies. Well, seeing as Eli immediately started scrawling “Etymology” across the posterboard in his perfectly plain, somewhat illegible handwriting... we didn’t have much of a chance at good design. Not that it mattered; I didn’t ever see the sign again after lunch. Anyways, we attempted to improve on it with shading and stuff, and someone added in the entire Greek alphabet, and other people started chipping in random languages.... but it really didn’t help much. Oh, and Howen behaved like a total little bitch. >> What an annoying little kid. And Will slept through most of it, which is irrelevant, but who cares...
Lunch was sad. On the way there, Nicole bumped into her parents and naturally she stayed with them and stood there with them and smiled and waved goodbye as we went to lunch... One down, 8 to go. The actual lunch was very quiet. For once the guys weren’t playing air hockey with the salt/peppershakers...
After that, they let us out and told us we could just hang out and do whatever we wanted to. So I found Elizabeth and confirmed our shuttle time; we had to gather there at 12:45. The plane left at 3, so naturally we had to be there at 2 at the latest, and of course the shuttle would be leaving at 1. We had roughly half an hour, during which I took many, many pictures... During my stay at CTY, I took about 200 pics on my camera. About 75 of them were taken on the last two days...
Mm. More shirt signing, random chit-chat with Louis and Del, and then the three of us had to go.
Pulling our luggage down the stairs proved an infinitely annoying task. I was almost worried that one of the wheels would break off as it bounced. But it made it safely down, and Eliza and I ventured to sign out. Saw Val, gave her a goodbye hug, said farewell to what remaining hallmates we could find, and left for Doheny.
We arrived rather late, but they had predicted that which is why they told us to get there at 12:45, rather than 1. Eliza/I found our names on the sheet of paper, had the lady check us off, and sat down on a piece of grass. Debra arrived several minutes later, holding a balloon. We helped her sign in, and then it was time to go. Some guy took all of our luggage, and we boarded, and the shuttle began driving us out of LMU... I remember looking back at the Doheny fountain and thinking that we didn’t detergent it this year. But the fountain wasn’t even running, so it wouldn’t really achieve the same impressive effect it did last year. I had lots of detergent left over, but as I couldn’t use it at home or even carry it home now that it was open, I ended up leaving it down where the washing machines were. Free detergent for anyone who needs it.
We sat in the back of the shuttle again and... talked, I think. And took pictures as we drove past things. This time the shuttle didn’t waste time circling about and we arrived at the airport very quickly. Brian the RA took us down (the three of us + another CTY guy) and... we went through all of that airport crap, yet again. We took an annoyingly long time at the luggage place, because the three of us were all minors and we had to re-fill out this form thing and we also needed someone to accompany us.... blahblahblah. The other CTY kid was, luckily, 15 or older, and he was spared this... stupidity. It took an insanely long time. The guy waiting in line behind us looked ready to kill. xX;;
Well, the waiting did one good thing. I had leftover goldfish which I had put into a plastic bag and I offered some to Deb/Eliza/CTY guy (although he didn’t eat any) and we managed to consume most of it. That was helpful. Later on we had to ride in a little bus/shuttle to get to the plane, and I finished the remaining handfuls there. Then I was able to dispose of the plastic bag. One less thing to carry...
The plane ride was nice and short. We sat there for a while before take-off, and Deb and I decided to use this time to look through... all of Eliza’s pictures! Hahaha. Then we started looking at mine, but the lady came over and told us to turn off all electronic devices so I had to put it away.
When we took off I looked out and saw L.A. growing smaller and smaller and it made me cry because I felt like I’d never see LMU again... (by the way, L.A. is incredibly smoggy, especially from an aerial view). Anyways, I didn’t want people to see me crying so they didn’t, and I ended up sleeping the rest of the way back. I woke up right before we landed, and spent the rest of the time looking at the yearbook with the other three people. Then we went through more airport crap, met up with our parents, and all went off to our real homes. LMU no longer qualified as a home...
----------------
I returned with a curiously blank feeling. I felt... numb. I observed myself - chattering with my mom, laughing at the enthusiastic pets, squeeing at the new hamster, diving back onto the computer... I felt like I was looking at myself through an invisible wall, watching the other me with a sense of mild curiosity...
Nothing had changed. Everything was waiting for me just the way I left it. I slipped back into family life as if I’d never left. And I accepted it, all of it, with that curious otherworldly feeling that comes over you in the mornings when part of you still lingers in a dream you had the night before and it just won’t let go, clinging on to the bits you remember because later in the day you will forget the dream, forget you had a dream, forget everything... and you don’t want to forget, don’t want to believe you will forget, and your mind just clings desperately and refuses to believe it. But it’s true. And you can’t avoid it forever.
CTY was over. The dream had ended.
But I think I’m still in denial.
Mm.. I’d really like to go over this and add in things that I know I forgot to put in (I made notes), but I’m feeling lazy at the moment. I’ll put up edits later. When is later? I don’t know...
That probably wasn’t a smart thing to do, because people will read over it now and probably never read the edited versions, but whatever. I’ll read the edited version - every word of it - months later when I have time to relive all of this, and that’s good enough for me.
WHAT I MISSED
Yes, I thought I was thorough but apparently I was not. There’s still the missing activity, and there were several things that were worth mentioning which I completely forgot about. My good friends pointed them out for me. =)
First, some time in that last week I had a notebook conversation with Christine. And plenty of random doodles. Yes, it was about Del. No, it had nothing important in it. Not much content. Most of it was randomness. But because I refused to show it to Eliza, everyone then wanted to see it and made a big deal out of it. Stole my notebook, had a mini-game of tag while they passed the notebook off continuously (I miss the old tag days... it kind of died in middle school...), teachers and TAs started hollering for their classes because it was time to go, they gave the notebook back without looking at it, and Christine helped me eradicate the conversation. End of story. =D
Second, some time in the same week there was a fight over my... pencil pouch. The blue one that my grandma made. The one with Tiffany’s gift - an onion themed mechanical pencil - in it. Onions! They resorted to dirty tactics. >> (i.e. Holding it up high so no one could reach it just because he’s tall.) They also threw it around a lot. I think it primarily started because I was throwing and catching it out of boredom, and someone reached over and snitched it before I could catch it. More chasing, more fun, did.... stuff. Mm. Until classes started.
....and how did I neglect to mention this?! Harleen, who had previously been a commuter, decided to move in. Since Christine’s roommate, Kyong-Rin, got sick and never arrived, she took over that room. And thus we had 10 people in our hall instead of 9.
We also happened to get Thai food some time last weekend. Saturday, I think. Everyone congregated in Whelan courtyard and we ordered along with the Etymology guys and certain other people. Witnessed Nathan and others throw a frisbee straight into the window of a girl’s bathroom (Desmond). Played much cards, tried to learn AmPie lyrics from Nicole (but failed because of Harleen), observed Quan’s eerie twinlikeness to Jessica, and talked much. Nicole covered for me on the food; I had only a $100 dollar bill left, and I paid her back after I got change from Ralphs.
MONDAY
Woke up early in the morning, got dressed, looked out the window, waited for some people other than me to arrive at Sunken Gardens, went out, joined them, and ran. I didn’t know what possessed me, on Sunday night, to suddenly tell Val I’d run. We had a hall meeting and she just mentioned the running, and Allison volunteered and she asked around to make sure Allison was the only one... and at the end of the hall meeting I just kind of blurted out “I’ll run.” So it was. Running supposedly starts at 6:15, though the people were there at more like 6:20.
There were very, very few people. A guy from Rosecrans, two girls from Doheny who looked like siblings or at least close friends, another girl from Doheny, the RA... and me. That’s it. And the RA didn’t run, so it was really just the five of us. And we just ran. I did... a lot of laps around Sunken Gardens. On a side note, Sunken Gardens is huge. >< Okay, so I didn’t do that many laps overall, but I ran maybe 2 miles. And when you haven’t really exercised much at all and you suddenly run two miles, the results aren’t so pleasing. Actually okay most of the day, but got very sore at night. Sad...
They didn’t really tell us when to stop running. Everyone just kind of... dispersed. And I saw everyone dispersed, so I just headed back to Desmond and a cleaning lady opened the door for me. I suppose I should have checked out with the RA first, but I wasn’t really paying attention to that.
Breakfast, classes... in class last week we had finished the Latin exam and were moving on to Greek. To our surprise, the final Latin exam was the “final review” section in the workbook. We finished it, turned it in... Then our teacher ordered us to rip out the “final review” (Greek) section in the workbook, now that we knew for sure it would be the Greek exam. Then he ordered us to rip out pages in the very back of the workbook. We flipped to the very back.... and there were the answers. To every single workbook page. Including the final review we just did. KYAAAAA~ We all felt incredibly stupid after that, but it was too late. Now that we knew about it, we had to rip out the answers to the Greek exam and hand it to him...
We also visited the library more often. We were going through select bits of interesting literature like Beowulf, and then the teacher would have us highlight interesting words. Then we’d have to look up the etymology, definitions, previous meanings, alternate spellings... whatever. And write it down in our “word journal.” We had to use the OED, the “Oxford English Dictionary,” mother of all dictionaries, and that’s what we did. The library had the entire dictionary set, naturally, but when we finished looking up words directly from the dictionary... We could go to “www.oed.com” and look there.
So, basically, after we finished our work with the written dictionaries, we were granted internet access. Hahahaha...
Weekly was Art of War. Everyone was there. Tiff, Deb, Eliza, Dylan, Del, Louis, Dawn... everyone. It wasn’t as fun as the short few Art of War games we played during NMF2, though. They split us into four teams. Me, Eliza, Deb, and Tiff were all in Dylan’s team! Yay! I think the muffinmen were on Dawn’s team, and I don’t know the people in the other teams, really. The only one I recognize is blue-shirt kid (Jasper?) who attempted to negotiate a treaty with us several times and got backstabbed.
With four teams, it became more of two one-on-one games. We won once, I think. I don’t quite remember. I do recall finding out that it was based on Ender’s Game, thinking back into the details of that awesome book, and thinking to myself that it was not even close to what’s described in the book. And to anyone who hasn’t read that book - it’s a must read. You have to read it. You DO!!
Daily was spongeball. Eliza, Deb, and Tiff were all there. Unfortunately, they had only 5 sponges. Maybe 6. According to them, someone stole all the other sponges, but I think they just couldn’t find them. Who would want anything with a million sponges?
It was still fun, despite their major lackage of sponges. That also meant that if no one threw a sponge for a minute, the other side might actually run out of sponges to throw. Great fun. Once I actually managed to peg Alex straight in his front, when he wasn’t paying attention to me and neglected to dodge. Unfortunately, after some time some idiot threw a pathetic throw right at him and he caught it. And got back up. And then he destroyed me with one of his killing frisbee-style throws. X.x Painful.
The lack of sponges meant that you couldn’t get ahold of a sponge a lot of the time, but not on certain circumstances. For example, when our team was losing and most people were down. And our team was losing quite often, so if I managed to be one of the few people living, I could have great fun claiming many sponges and chucking them at the other team. Very wet business. There was one girl who had done spongeball for a weekly as well, and she was thoroughly soaked. Apparently they had a free-for-all with the hose right afterwards.
Nothing memorable in study hall or social time. Or dinner, for that matter. Eliza and I had more roommate chats...
Edit: Thanks to Eliza for clarifying this... ‘tis worth a slight mention - lanyard fight with Del right before study hall. For some reason he did Friendship Bracelets for a daily and made a lanyard. Chet made some as well, but I think he did that earlier. Like during NMF2. Combination of pink and clear... actually looks pretty cool.
TUESDAY
Woke up early in the morning again, dressed, and looked out the window. No one was there. Saw Harleen awake when I went to the bathroom, and decided to stay in my room and wait. At around 6:10 Harleen headed out to Sunken Gardens. She hung around for a very long time. It was past 6:15. That’s when I began to regret not signing out with the RA yesterday. They must have decided that they wouldn’t be doing this any longer (since not enough people were running) and neglected to tell me because I hadn’t bothered to go up to them.
After a long while, it seemed like Harleen had left Sunken Gardens, though I hadn’t heard her return to her room, and I decided to go down... for whatever stupid reason. I guess it was just early and I was the only one awake and couldn’t really go to sleep.
It turns out Harleen didn’t go back. She tried, but she was locked out of Desmond. Then she followed me to Sunken Gardens attempting to strike up conversation. I didn’t feel like conversation, so I started running. It worked. She attempted to follow me, but after some time was reduced to walking along the edge of Sunken Gardens because she couldn’t catch up. This made me very happy, so I kept running (and keeping an eye on her) until she eventually gave up and returned to Desmond. Score! By then I’d ran over a mile, so I decided to head back as well.
Apparently the cleaning ladies were either slacking off and not cleaning or ignoring Harleen or just, for some reason, not hearing her, because when I got there she was still locked out of Desmond. I pounded on the door twice or thrice, realized that I was kind of out of breath, then began walking ‘round the edge of Rosecrans Courtyard to, well, walk it off. For some unfathomable reason Harleen followed my example and began circling after me. Then a cleaning lady arrived, she cried out in joy, abandoned her dutiful, er, circles, and rushed to the door. I followed suit.
We went upstairs, I woke Elizabeth up, and we went down to breakfast, classes, all that stuff. I think we may have gone to the library again during class. Much Tengwar-copying, myspace-creating (Christine tried to add Romy to her newly-made myspace, and added Will instead), livejournal-checking, and general fun ensued. We were all masters at our art; the teacher was completely oblivious. However, he did get mad at Jessica and Robert’s blatant show of PDA: sitting together in one seat. (Actually, Robert had stolen Jessica’s seat and she tried to sit on him to get him off and it somehow ended up like that.) Fun stuff.
Art of War again. Same teams, save one group which splintered and merged with the other teams so that there were only three teams. I still say it wasn’t as fun as the very first game I played in NMF2. We switched locations a few times, just to be fair. I brought my camera and took a number of pictures while we were waiting around, or when I was dead. After some time I decided to leave it under a tree, because it proved a hindrance when dodging. Then lots of jacket were tossed under the tree along with it. Apparently we have decided to choose thought commanders other than Dylan (he’s still the team captain, though; it seems commandeering is unrelated to team-captainism), and after our thought commander went out and showed herself to the other teams, she came back and there was a mad jacket scramble in which many people switched jackets. That might have worked, except the fact that we were out in the open and all the other teams could see exactly what we were doing. Then eventually most people ditched their jackets, and they ended up piled upon my unfortunate camera.
Well, that jacket tactic didn’t work. We tried again. There were two similar looking girls, and after one waved her arm about proving that she was thought commander, they switched jackets. But one girl was wearing shorts and the other pants. So the whole plan went POOF because the other teams didn’t even bother looking at the jackets.
I remember being thought commander once. The other team played a cheap trick. They said they killed the thought commander, so my whole team sat down, and THEN they killed me. They had not gotten me. I clearly remember jumping backwards while dodging and then falling over Debra who had sat down behind me which seriously irked her but also somehow prevented me from getting tagged. Cheaters. (Did anyone catch that previous sentence?)
M’well, Robbie decided it didn’t count and let our whole team get back up. Yay for him.
I did Superman Tag for a daily. And surprisingly enough, nearly everyone else was doing it as well. (Namely Eliza, Deb, Tiff, Allison, many muffinmen since Christian was there... then Alex, blue-shirt guy, black-shirt kid, fast fat kid, indian guy, and a number of other people I recognize but don’t know the names of). We spent a while lounging on the walls while Joseph randomly pushed people off. Took some pictures, observed Boris and Sean chasing each other around over a sweater... yeah.
When everyone was signed in, they signalled and we all headed back to Sunken Gardens, to the exact spot we just came from. Tiffany actually brought her tape recorder along, and she and Deb were attempting to play “romance music” in the background? (They’ve been doing this for a while; whenever Eliza/Dylan or me/Del walked together, they’d start singing...) Except it came out really crackly and messed up. Then, I forget the reason, but Deb and I went kind of crazy and we linked arms and skipped almost the rest of the way there. Then she fell back and four of them linked arms and did the same thing and I decided to stay out of their way.
Superman Tag turned out to be freeze tag, pretty much. Except to unfreeze someone you have to crawl between their legs. I personally don’t see how it has to do with superman, but they have their explanation. When you’re frozen, you stand there with your legs apart, right? So they say if you put one hand on your hips and punch the air with your other hand, you’re striking a superman pose. That was pretty funny, because after they said it everyone would literally strike a “superman pose” when they were frozen.
This time they acted like intelligent people and set boundaries for a small space, so we didn’t have the terrible, boundary-less games like week one’s Freeze Tag. The first round or two, they only chose two its, so I survived without much trouble. Then they decided that they were being too hard on the its so the number increased to three. That was more difficult, and much running rendered me out of breath, so I decided to stand there and catch my breath when someone finally tagged me. A lot of people kept asking if I wanted to be saved. It was annoying. One kid would not get it. He asked like seven times. “Are you frozen?” “Do you want to be saved?” “Wait, are you frozen?” It was rather irritating.
Interestingly enough, after a certain amount of running, I would not really get out of breath any more. Kind of like my body snapped into a “running about” mode. That was very helpful, as is acting frozen. If the it is too fast for you, freeze, and sometimes they would pass within an inch of you and not notice. They chase the fleeing prey. =P It was pretty funny. If you bolt right after the it has passed you (so they can’t really stop and turn around to chase you), you elicit all sorts of interesting responses. Mostly they just shout after you. (“Hey!”) But once or twice an it would attempt to turn around to chase you instead, which just doesn’t work out. By the time they’ve turned around, you’re already a safe distance away, and they’ve also just lost whoever they were previously pursuing. I once thoroughly confused... brunette girl? ...with the above tactic.
It was lots of fun. Almost the entire “tag” group from school was there. Though it’s been a long time since we’ve played tag. So sad. Elementary school... Harker structures... “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah”... the million versions of tag.... all the stuff that we invented... I think these days are gone forever. ;_;
I think everyone took turns being it. Deb and Tiff were both its at some point. I know I was. Del and Louis tried their “sexy poses,” and failed miserably... When Allison was frozen, she kept attempting to block me. But she just stuck out her arms. Blue-shirt kid actually purposely moved in my way and successfully prevented me from chasing the other people because I had to pause and veer off so I didn’t crash into him. Speaking of that, when Eliza was it she crashed into Boris and the three of them (including Tiff) all fell in a pile. Rather entertaining. I caught some pictures while I was frozen. Video clips, too...
After that I don’t recall anything interesting. If there’s something worth mentioning, tell me and I’ll add it in.
WEDNESDAY
Did all the morning stuff (no running today because it was sprinkling in the morning); some antisocial guy attempted to give me his ticket to the informal dance party. Found myself eating more food because I’d actually exercised somewhat. Naturally, there was still a store of goldfish back at Desmond.
In class I believe we watched Much Ado About Nothing. Enormously funny... some parts. Benedick and Beatrice were hilarious. Hero and Claudio less so. Keanu Reeves looks weird with a beard. And he’s still not a very good actor, although that contributed to certain humorous moments.
Also must mention that this week Christine, Eli, and Nicole got me into Mao. Funfunfuuuun. Point of Order. Have a nice day. Have a very nice day. *knock* It’s sunny; have a very VERY nice day. *knock knock* Oh lord, have a very very VERY nice day! *knock knock knock* Last card. Adriatic Sea! Elvis has left the building. ...failure to poke the person to your left. It’s a MOOSE, Mao!
Ahahahahaha... My class has managed to lose the majority of my frisbees by this time, and we were reduced to playing with only the crappy PetsMart frisbee, so I ended up playing Mao instead. At the end of the session the four of us vowed not to teach anybody else our version of Mao and not to play it until we have a get-together. Someday Nicole will fly over from Arizona! She will! If she doesn’t, I’ll fly over there instead. >>
Nothing interesting of note ‘til Art of War... This Art of War was slightly different from the others. They introduced the use of playing cards.
A = Highest attack card
2 = Thought Commander
3 = Scout
4 = Lowest attack card; can kill Aces
The rest is self-explanatory. You can kill people who have a lower card than you; if you have the same card you both die; anyone can kill the Thought Commander; no one can kill the scout, though they can kill each other. Dodgeballs kill everyone except scouts, but only certain cards may handle a dodgeball - Scouts cannot, and neither can people with face-cards. Just touching the dodgeball of another team could kill you, so you had to be careful when running about; if you accidentally tripped over a ball it was over. ;_;
I was a face card several times, I think. A queen, then jack, and even Ace, once (Unfortunately, when I was Ace I ran into another Ace and we both died). I was Thought Commander once, too. Most of our group feigned death and Deb and I had lots of fun doing cartwheels until Dawn’s group came over and tapped us each on the shoulder to make sure we were dead. >> I should’ve bolted. I might have lived for a bit.
I’d rather have been able to tag people, though. Thought Commanders can’t harm anyone. Anyone can kill them, and they can’t even move without someone nearby. And the boundaries there were too small. It’s not like Harker, where I can run across the blacktop, through X garden, around the PE building through the Friendship Garden, across the blacktop once more, and possibly even onto the field to throw the three or four its off my trail (Ah, good ol’ hide-and-go-seek-tag...). Naturally it’s much easier if there’s someone else the its are after as well, because if I’m the only one.... well, they’d never be thrown off trail. And eventually they’ll catch me unless I manage to hold out ‘til recess ends. And unfortunately enough for Thought Commanders, they will be the main target especially if another team dies, and there are infinitely more than just 3-4 people chasing them.
Mm. Now I miss the Harker campus (Saratoga one). We did play tag in middle school, too.... But I don’t think we will in high school. The “tag” group is thoroughly split...
Anyways, that was pretty much how AoW went on Wednesday. Chased Del around a palm tree (but failed to catch him) when I was either a jack or queen, slaughtered a few people the next game, stayed back to protect the Thought Commander when I was a 10 (under Dylan’s orders), got killed when I was Thought Commander, destroyed some people in protecting various Thought Commanders.... relatively fun. There were also, of course, a number of games in which the Thought Commander died much too early and I had to sit down along with the rest of the team. That was when Deb and I first started doing cartwheels and flips and stuff - we were bored.
Did Sidewalk Art for daily. The last of the activities. I should have done it earlier. People appreciated my work for... about two days. Then they all left camp and all my masterpieces were probably eradicated. Not that I drew much. Spent much time using many different shades of chalk to label the Doheny fountain “The Fountain of Youth,” then added “(has dried up)” because it felt appropiate. Also vandalized the inside of the fountain with an “Adela was here.” They filled it the next day. I wonder if my comment had anything to do with it. And the “Adela was here” survived, despite the water.
Scribbled “Annie.is.the.best.RA.ever.SIETE!!” in the same spot as last year, then realized that “best” should have been “most.awesome”... Too late. So I screwed up the countoff. Not that anyone would notice. Alison might; she was in our hall last year and I think still has a Doheny room this year, but I’m not sure she remembers that. Later added an arrow saying “and Val,” just for good measure.
Got a yellow piece of chalk and drew a sun, then noticed that someone had written FMA all over in the most random places, though mostly smudged and fading. Renewed all of them, then remembered “Force = Mass x Acceleration,” became very irritated, grabbed more chalk and wrote out “Full Metal Alchemist” in calligraphy. No physics shall ruin that. Then I heard a shout and turned to see Christine and Nicole waving their arms about. Gave them a thumbs up and left for more chalk.
After that I was at a loss for what to draw, and ended up writing in bright blue letters “Watch Miyazaki Movies.” Then Eliza ditched Act Weird with Jake and Val - held in Sullivan - and I showed her my beautiful masterpieces. She spent much time taking pictures. Debra and Tiffany also came running, but they, unlike the smart Eliza, had neglected to ask permission before coming, and thus ran back and forth several times before actually joining us.
When they did I showed them around as well, only to discover that someone had rudely vandalized my “Watch Miyzaki Movies,” crossing out “Miyazaki Movies” and changing it to “Arrested Development.” And even when we were there, she shamelessly continued her vandalism... which thoroughly vexed me. So I drew an arrow pointing to her words, and wrote a small, vehement paragraph explaining the rudeness of crossing things out and the beauty of arrows. After that it was time to go, so I stole two pieces of chalk and left, chatting with others about various activities.
At dinner Eliza and I grabbed a window seat - the type that seats only two people. We talked a bit; mostly just ate... when I saw Christine, Nicole, and Joyce walking down below. Well, I waved, and Christine waved back. Then Eliza noticed, and she waved with me, and Nicole and Joyce (seeing Christine) waved at us as well. Then Nicole started doing some sign language that I unfortunately couldn’t understand. I knew it was sign language, though. Our whole hall has been somewhat into sign language ever since Ashley came in one day and taught us how to say “I want pretty boy penis” in sign language, naturally. I think sign language was a weekly activity? Anyways, Christine, less skilled in that form of communication, started doing YMCA instead. It was very entertaining. We made random signs back at them... weird faces, odd gestures... lots of mindless arm-waving. I think this one group of guys thought we were crazy.
Random side note: I also made use of my two pieces of chalk and wrote “Adela was here” in a corner on the floor of the place... where the picnic tables are. I wonder if anyone noticed.
Social time was not social time. It was the two informal dance parties where only people with “tickets” should be. Of course, everyone ignored that and went to it anyways. What fun is a dance party with only two RA groups? It was pretty boring, though. Held in Whelan Courtyard and behind Doheny... we stuck to the one by Whelan. We being Eliza and I. Deb and Tiff were nowhere to be found. We thought they’d probably gone to the Doheny party, since Tiff lives in Doheny, but we were too lazy to go over there and check. In any case, it was rather boring. Didn’t have good songs, wasted a large chunk of time looking about for Deb/Tiff (Joseph actually went to Doheny to find Deb), and it was mostly just... social time with music in the background. And a few hardcore people dancing.
Louis followed Joseph, I think, or half-followed him, but eventually they came back because there was no sign of Debra anywhere. Odd. Later on we found the two of them hiding out in Debra’s room plotting a conspiracy. Debra was completely unaware of the dance party. How un-Debraish of her. I actually didn’t really know about it either, but I remembered a random dance like this last year, and what with the guy attempting to give me a “ticket” and the casino night stuff... two and two make four.
On a random note, Elizabeth pointed out to me Jess + Robert cuddling in the bushes, except I couldn’t see them - I thought that the dark blob WAS part of the bushes - and then they moved and gave me a scare because they looked like... a moving blob. A split second later I realized they were Jessica and Robert. But yeah... odd moment...
Nothing much happened back at Desmond. Eliza and I were pointedly not calling our parents because we were spiteful at... the fast-approaching end of CTY, I suppose.
Oh, this might’ve been the night... Eliza and I were hanging out and chatting roommate talk when we heard a screaming noise that sounded uncannily like an alarm. We rushed out to discover that Val had bodily hoisted Ashley up and was carrying her on her shoulder like a piece of baggage (for some unknown reason). I swear, Ashley screams at a constant rate. “AIEEEEE” *pause* “AIEEEEE” *pause* “AIEEEEE” *pause* “AIEEEEE”... you get the point. Exactly like a fire alarm...
Well, that gave us a good laugh...
THURSDAY
The morning was okay. It was the first beginnings of shirt-signing. Jessica was going ‘round having people sign her jeans, so I decided to get people to sign my CTY shirt. ‘Twas a good idea. Now it’s memorable and worthy of dress, whereas before it most probably would have been stowed away in some corner and never touched again. I brought it down for Debra to sign, and she began writing a message around the seams that was incredibly long and took forever. Almost made me late to breakfast. I’ll relate the message here since on my shirt it’ll eventually fade and the words may become unreadable.
“Hey DELL-a! It was great this session. Had so much fun ^-^. Ah... the memories... 1 day I will get how to play Mao! Nyanyanyanya. Meep! Me + Tiff have a surprise for u and we’re working our butts off so you’d better enjoy it. And you can remember it always by reading this shirt. HAPPY. Well this kinda sorta friend reunion was so totally awesum, hopefully we can have some more *cough-starfox-cough* Miss ya lots >< & have fun w/Dell!!! ^^”
.....she wrote a paragraph.... Geez. That’s probably why it took so long.
Ate lots of sugar cubes and watched “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” in class. Based loosely on the Odyssey, extremely entertaining. A welcome break after the Greek final exam (which was terrible, by the way). Seating arrangements went as following: Almost all of the guys sitting in a row way at the back, Jess/Robert cuddling in their corner (left-front), me, Christine, and possibly Nicole sitting in the right-front, and Romy lying down in the very front. Eventually Christine, who had been glancing at Romy rather frequently, got up and joined her in the front of the room, on the floor. However, while Christine seemed to watch the movie, Romy apparently slept.
Halfway through, the Computer Science T.A. (CS was taking a test, apparently), tromped into our room and demanded us turn down the volume. Quite irritating. But reasonable. Eliza relates that halfway through their test they heard loud country music coming from our room: rather oO;; for them.
Played Mao during the breaks. It was either this day or Wednesday when the white frisbee was retrieved (the frisbee remained lost... ever since the first week), and we played, and it got on the roof of the other building. And there was no ladder leading up there. So there it stayed, and that’s where it probably still is now.
We still played with the PetsMart frisbee, despite its crappiness. I didn’t play Mao all the time. I totally owned at Three Flags Up... the frisbee got into the streets a few times, though. Nathan once chased it right onto the street and almost got run over by a car. Ben got massively angry and began yelling at him. Other than that, breaks were... fun. As usual.
There were no activities. We were supposed to “pack up.” Unfortunately, I could not pack anything ‘til my blanket, sheets, and pillow were in the suitcase. And I needed them for one more night. So I ended up not doing any packing whatsoever.
Actually, before that, we went on a long trek all across campus. Harleen, who had moved in, decided she needed a proper room key. So she could use it once or twice on the very last day and be happy. So we got Jamba Juice, then set out on our voyage, successfully killing an hour and forcing our whole hall to exercise - not necessarily a bad thing.
Edit: Some time before this, perhaps even Wednesday, Christine used one of the pieces of chalk I stole to show Nicole and I the Korean alphabet. Nicole could actually read some of it. We also doodled together in certain other places on the way back to Desmond.
When we returned, everyone started packing. As I could not, I stared out the window and depressed myself. Thoroughly. Then our hall agreed not to go to dinner and throw a junk food party instead. All of us, especially Nicole, still had fair amounts of junk food left, and we weren’t eager to take all of it with us tomorrow. I ended up not eating much because the junk food somewhat upsets my stomach.
Eliza and I visited Debra several times hoping to find out what her planned “surprise” was, but failed each time. Then everyone began dressing up for the dance. Black and white... not that people followed the theme, of course (well, some did. Nicole wore all white and looked stunningly... holy). The actual dance was rather colorful. I just happened to have a black skirt at hand, so I wore it (discovered later that Tiff wore the exact same thing! Hahaha). Still felt rather dejected, though, because I was thinking too much. When there’s nothing to do, I think, and when I think too much, I depress myself. It’s sad to know that CTY is about to end... and it was made all the more real when Val informed us that we had to strip down the “We *heart* Sugar + Nerds.” For a moment we stared at her like she was crazy. Then we fought, and won, and she agreed to let us keep it up for the dance.
Well, that only made me gloomier. There was still some time before the dance so I started rolling up my clothing (to put into the suitcase tomorrow). Then someone shouted “Adela!” and I looked out the window to see Will on the sidewalk down below, looking gay and spirited, and... he started dancing on the sidewalk. oO;; I made a little You’re Weird gesture at him (where you point a finger at your head and go like @ with it?) and... he did it right back. Large-scale (like... full hand, instead of finger). Dance-mode. While jumping up and down like a crazed guitar player. Then he just kind of... waved, smiled, and left.
Odd, but it cheered me up considerably. Laughed very hard~
LAST DANCE
Black and white formal, Rosecrans courtyard. The last dance, and also the best. Of course, I was feeling rather depressed throughout the entire affair, so it rather toned down the… fun. Halfway through, Dylan actually asked, “Is it just me or do you always look kind of sad?” ><
The big circle problem persisted, though it wasn’t so bad as the Hollywood dance. Unfortunately, this time Debra kept splitting with Tiffany instead of me. ;_; Since they were in the “conspiracy” together, I suppose. I’d try to follow them, but it was useless. Unless you are the circle-splitter, it just doesn’t work. If I follow, the rest of the group follows me and I just end up in a big circle again and eventually the two of them split again...
In the beginning the two of them refused to come down. They were busy conspiring in Debra’s room. Or, as they later claimed, they were doing their hair. For about 20 minutes. Which was possible, I suppose.
The first thing we did was take a hall picture. Naturally it wasn’t the official one that showed up in the yearbook – just a group picture. Then we started forming the group circles and attempted to dance. However, as we were missing Debra, the main dance-starter person (aside from me), and Tiffany, who also helps us with that… I had a hard time getting people to start dancing. As usual, Lynnelle pretended to be a block of wood and set a wonderful example for other reluctant dancers…
We ended up running up and down Desmond a lot. We knew Deb and Tiff were in Deb’s room, and we went in with Lynnelle’s key, whereupon they started, pushed us out the door, and promised to be there in another 10 minutes. To be honest, they might really have spent all that time doing their hair (ribbons!). What a scary thought.
The conspirators joined us during the line dance. After that things rather continued as usual. Some muffinmen joined our big circles, and of course none of them were wearing anything black/white. >> Lots of excitement, dancing, and general fun. No song requests this time, resulting in actual good dance songs getting played...
People also threw rolls of toilet paper in the air which actually produced rather cool results, except the RAs stopped them after a while.
Slow dances: The first slow song was too early. I don't think anyone really danced except a few weird people. During the second slow song (Forever Young? So says Louis' LJ, though I can't remember) Eliza and I both respectively paired up with our counterparts, and thus discovered Deb + Tiff's conspiracy.
They spent all that time memorizing lyrics to what they considered “romantic background music” and they were going to sing the romance music while we danced (with the help of Tiffany’s tape recorder) - completely oblivious to the fact that the DJ would actually be playing a slow song in the background. Deb says they thought they could drown out the DJ. Well, they failed. I think they gave up halfway through and ran back for cameras and pictures instead. Annoying people. >>
Danced with Del for most of the remaining slow dances (aside from the times he was swept away by muffinmen group circles). Eliza/Dylan naturally did the same, and sadly enough, so did Deb/Louis, for the most part. I pitied Joseph, but... he never asked. So for that, at least, he had only himself to blame.
After a certain point lots of styrofoam bits and wet toilet paper got onto the grass. I’ve no idea where the styrofoam came from, but it was rather nasty to dance on. The two of us ended up agreeing to, er, kind of “slide” coordinatedly into the throng, where it was less disgusting... (That felt kind of stupid, but yeah.... we did that to avoid Tiffany, too ><)
Tiffany and Allison didn’t dance to any of the slow songs, I think. It was rather sad, especially seeing as it was the last dance. But they seemed happy enough. Tiff said she felt like a mother taking care of three children (the children being me, Deb, and Eliza). Yeah right. =refrains from saying... stuff= What kind of mother runs around eagerly taking blinding flash pictures of their children dancing with others (blinding their children and annoying them to no end in the process)? She was exceedingly irritating. Allison, at least, restrained herself to occasional sly remarks as she passed us while... threading through the dancers, I suppose. Tiff was just.... she didn’t even use her own camera. Eliza returned to Desmond that night to discover 5-6 extra pictures on her camera.
The slideshow was good. I liked it better than last year’s. About ten minutes before the slideshow, they started clearing people away from the front of the stage (and guess where we were), which resulted in all of us getting shoved back into a group of people and being very cramped. Then Deb + the others threaded their way out the back of the group and ran around, and Del/I tried to follow, except we kinda lost them in the throng of people. When we made our way out, they were long gone.
Eventually, after running around and randomly forcing our way back into the throng, we found Debra, along with some other people from the giant circle. They had made their way to the front-center, the best place to view the slideshow. >> They would...
The grass was wet; it made a wet spot on my skirt. Good thing I wore black. As for seating... Debra and Tiffany got a good seat in front, Del and I sat somewhat behind, Elizabeth and Dylan’s whereabouts were unknown, and the other circle people were scattered sparsely around.
This year I liked the actual slideshow a lot. More than last year’s, at any rate (though I don’t really remember what last year’s was like). There were many funny moments, and I applauded it more than once... Speaking of that, it was funny watching Del try to clap. He had one arm around me, so he had to reach the other arm waaaay over to achieve a few pathetic, weak claps. And eventually he gave up and started slapping his knee instead. oO;; But that was pretty random.
I showed up once or twice. There was this one shot in which we were all playing Egyptian Ratscrew, although I had no idea it was us until the very end of the shot, where Eliza’s face was clearly visible as she viciously slapped the pile. Also some other interesting videos... Christian’s hall chanting their Nemo chant, everybody picking up trash (speeded up about 10x), people rushing up to crowd Max (piano)... There was one frozen shot of someone getting water splashed on them, right before the water made contact. It looked very cool.
When it ended, a Nevermore went up and gave a speech beseeching us to respect American Pie and play by rules. Which made it very sad... It was also pretty violent. Hung on to Del and got... pushed by the mob of people to the edge.... then almost got knocked over when they charged. Scary experience.
Lots of half-singing (with help from Nicole), shouting ourselves hoarse, jumping, screaming, and, of course, dancing. Deb and I were both tired, but we had to keep it up ‘til the end, no? (This year we successfully took Cori’s place as most energetic...)
Then it just... ended. Del gave me the duct-tape rose, which admittedly didn’t look much like a rose unless you look at it from the top, but... ‘twas exceedingly awesome anyways. I also completely did not know that duct-tape came in different colors... >< I feel stupid now.
Well, shouted some more (Nobody loves you! We love you!), then tagged along to the Physics cheer and realized that Debra wasn’t there. Informed her afterwards, to her dismay (well, not really), and then it was really over. Goodbye hugs, farewells, then the RAs shooed us right up the stairs of Desmond.
THE LAST SLEEPOVER
After some dispute, the entire hall decided to hold a group sleepover in Ashley/Nicole’s room (the “Sugar + Nerds” room). Val agreed to turn a blind eye, so long as we kept the volume down. She also ordered us to strip the tape. ;_; It was incredibly saddening. Within moments, only empty windows remained where “We *heart* Sugar + Nerds” once proudly stood. It left us with an sizable tape-ball which we tossed about for a while, ‘til Val made us stop.
Elizabeth and I decided not to actually sleep over. We would hang out in their room until everyone else was pretty much asleep, then return to our room to actually sleep. She’s had enough of hot rooms, bumpy mattresses, and hard floors. Several other people adopted our suggestion and half the hall ended up doing the same.
We talked long into the night... Romy had brought blankets and a pillow which she set up on the floor by Ashley’s bed, and she ended up falling asleep almost immediately and missing most of the... chatter. Ashley slept on her bed, almost asleep yet almost awake, and was only half-conscious of our conversation. Elizabeth sat on the foot of her bed.
Nicole, ironically enough, had to sit on the floor and lean against a chair while Jessica claimed her bed. I sat on the foot of her bed, like Elizabeth. Christine sat scrunched by the door, whereas Harleen had brought sheets and blankets and settled down on the other side of the door. Allison was sitting somewhere else on the floor; I forgot where.
We also supplied plenty of food. The junk food party by no means took care of all of our junk food, and many people brought their remaining food hoping that it will be devoured before Friday.
We talked a lot that night. I can’t remember everything we talked about, but we talked a lot. Eventally, of course, it veered off into the traditional games of Never Have I Ever and Truth or Dare. Halfway into the game, it became quite obvious that Jessica was going to die first. She had the most fingers down, while Eliza and I (or was it Christine and I?) had the least. I would have remained the winner had not Eliza given some blatantly targeting statements solely to get me. But Jessica died, as predicted, though we didn’t really give her a good dare and I don’t think she followed through...
Truth or Dare was quite interesting. I used to be dare-only, but I reverted to truth this night, and so did everyone else except Jessica. It was a good thing, I suppose, since none of us had any good dares to give. They had all the normal prying questions, then some boring questions, then we ran out of questions and the questions started getting weirder and weirder. Perverted questions, food questions (from Nicole), and just random questions. Some of them were hilarious.
It continued late into the night until the majority of the people were ready to collapse. Some were asleep already. That’s when Elizabeth and I decided to retire to our room. Christine and Allison were still awake, and we invited them over to our room and the four of us talked some more. Actually, upon hitting her bed, Eliza fell into a half-slumber mode where she was somewhat aware of what we said (i.e. If we mentioned her/Dylan, she comes awake enough to mumble a “What?” and fall back to sleep) but didn’t participate in actual conversation. So it was just the three of us.
And we talked... all sorts of things, anything that came into our mind... We just talked, and listened, and kept the conversation going. Some time in it all I realized that I left my waterbottle in Ashley/Nicole’s room, so I went back to retrieve it. I saw a funny sight. Everyone was asleep, in the exact same position we had left them. Poor Nicole was sleeping up against the chair while Jessica drooled on her bed...
Tip-toed out of their room and returned to my own wonderful bed. Christine and Allison were still there. Well, they left briefly to retrieve their sheets and pillows and stuff because they were tired of sitting on the ground. We decided that we would try and pull an all-nighter together. There were only a few more hours to go, after all...
We might have succeeded. We really might have. If only it weren’t my room. If only it didn’t take place in my room and I wasn’t on my own bed with my own soft blanket and my own comfy pillow I could probably have made it through without falling asleep. Even if I had all of my stuff with me, if it weren’t my room and I wasn’t sleeping on my mattress I might have managed to stay awake. The mattress was the key, though it was a crappy. (I had a striped gray lumpy mattress and Eliza had a good blue mattress >>) Not that I normally notice its crappiness anyways...
Well, we kept at it for a while. We managed to kill another hour or so, at least a half-hour... But the moment I fell asleep it was over, because they can’t keep it up with just the two of them, so they each withdrew to their respective rooms, and our attempt failed.
FRIDAY
Slept only 3 hours or so, but got up in the morning feeling unnaturally awake. Found Christine in the same state. Proceeded to spend about half an hour stripping my side of the room and stuffing it all into my tiny little suitcase. The room looked very empty when I was done.
Most people were just beginning to stir when I peeped into Nicole’s room. Had poor Nicole slept against that chair the whole night?
Eventually most everyone woke up, and there was a flurry of activity as they all went about doing some last-minute packing. It was a sad sight, seeing all the suitcases and backpacks lined up out in the hallway and the rooms stripped completely clean.
Christine and I, along with others who had finished packing, hung out once again in Nicole/Ashley’s room. We stared out the window down at the masses of people turning in their key cards. Suitcases, backpacks, other baggage... a gloomy sight. I ended up delving into the yearbook instead (we had recieved them last night). The yearbook was well-made, and hard to get bored of.
We were late to breakfast. We were already late down to Rosecrans courtyard to turn in our key cards, and while there, we delayed ourselves even more with yearbook signing, shirt signing, jeans signing, contact-info giving, and other such activities.
Breakfast actually had decent sausages, or so says the people who ate them. What a surprise. They would improve on the very last day... We continued on with our activities, which led to us being late to class. But no one cared. Us Etymology people had purposely left our backpacks back at Desmond so none of us would have our text/workbooks so the teacher could not force us to do work. I did bring my shirt and yearbook, though, in a separate bag. And a pencil pouch.
Well, that turned out to be a wise decision because we found the muffinmen at breakfast (singing their theme song), as well as Etymology people (although I’d see them at class right after that), and there was even more shirt-signing. Finally, Val, who had come in late and was our primary reason of delay, decided that we couldn’t wait for her anymore. It was taking too long. So some other RA took us out, and we were dragged off to... class, unfortunately.
Class wasn’t so bad. We took the pretest again to see how much we’d improved (though he called it a posttest), and then we played the word game. Due to the bonus questions, our team was waaay behind the other team, so we decided to take a risk. The last bonus question ever... we wagered all of our points. It was our last shot at a miraculous recovery.
Naturally, we failed.
Final score 21 to 0. It was rather sad...
When the game ended, Ben gave us a piece of posterboard and markers. We had to make a sign or poster of some sort for Etymologies. Well, seeing as Eli immediately started scrawling “Etymology” across the posterboard in his perfectly plain, somewhat illegible handwriting... we didn’t have much of a chance at good design. Not that it mattered; I didn’t ever see the sign again after lunch. Anyways, we attempted to improve on it with shading and stuff, and someone added in the entire Greek alphabet, and other people started chipping in random languages.... but it really didn’t help much. Oh, and Howen behaved like a total little bitch. >> What an annoying little kid. And Will slept through most of it, which is irrelevant, but who cares...
Lunch was sad. On the way there, Nicole bumped into her parents and naturally she stayed with them and stood there with them and smiled and waved goodbye as we went to lunch... One down, 8 to go. The actual lunch was very quiet. For once the guys weren’t playing air hockey with the salt/peppershakers...
After that, they let us out and told us we could just hang out and do whatever we wanted to. So I found Elizabeth and confirmed our shuttle time; we had to gather there at 12:45. The plane left at 3, so naturally we had to be there at 2 at the latest, and of course the shuttle would be leaving at 1. We had roughly half an hour, during which I took many, many pictures... During my stay at CTY, I took about 200 pics on my camera. About 75 of them were taken on the last two days...
Mm. More shirt signing, random chit-chat with Louis and Del, and then the three of us had to go.
Pulling our luggage down the stairs proved an infinitely annoying task. I was almost worried that one of the wheels would break off as it bounced. But it made it safely down, and Eliza and I ventured to sign out. Saw Val, gave her a goodbye hug, said farewell to what remaining hallmates we could find, and left for Doheny.
We arrived rather late, but they had predicted that which is why they told us to get there at 12:45, rather than 1. Eliza/I found our names on the sheet of paper, had the lady check us off, and sat down on a piece of grass. Debra arrived several minutes later, holding a balloon. We helped her sign in, and then it was time to go. Some guy took all of our luggage, and we boarded, and the shuttle began driving us out of LMU... I remember looking back at the Doheny fountain and thinking that we didn’t detergent it this year. But the fountain wasn’t even running, so it wouldn’t really achieve the same impressive effect it did last year. I had lots of detergent left over, but as I couldn’t use it at home or even carry it home now that it was open, I ended up leaving it down where the washing machines were. Free detergent for anyone who needs it.
We sat in the back of the shuttle again and... talked, I think. And took pictures as we drove past things. This time the shuttle didn’t waste time circling about and we arrived at the airport very quickly. Brian the RA took us down (the three of us + another CTY guy) and... we went through all of that airport crap, yet again. We took an annoyingly long time at the luggage place, because the three of us were all minors and we had to re-fill out this form thing and we also needed someone to accompany us.... blahblahblah. The other CTY kid was, luckily, 15 or older, and he was spared this... stupidity. It took an insanely long time. The guy waiting in line behind us looked ready to kill. xX;;
Well, the waiting did one good thing. I had leftover goldfish which I had put into a plastic bag and I offered some to Deb/Eliza/CTY guy (although he didn’t eat any) and we managed to consume most of it. That was helpful. Later on we had to ride in a little bus/shuttle to get to the plane, and I finished the remaining handfuls there. Then I was able to dispose of the plastic bag. One less thing to carry...
The plane ride was nice and short. We sat there for a while before take-off, and Deb and I decided to use this time to look through... all of Eliza’s pictures! Hahaha. Then we started looking at mine, but the lady came over and told us to turn off all electronic devices so I had to put it away.
When we took off I looked out and saw L.A. growing smaller and smaller and it made me cry because I felt like I’d never see LMU again... (by the way, L.A. is incredibly smoggy, especially from an aerial view). Anyways, I didn’t want people to see me crying so they didn’t, and I ended up sleeping the rest of the way back. I woke up right before we landed, and spent the rest of the time looking at the yearbook with the other three people. Then we went through more airport crap, met up with our parents, and all went off to our real homes. LMU no longer qualified as a home...
I returned with a curiously blank feeling. I felt... numb. I observed myself - chattering with my mom, laughing at the enthusiastic pets, squeeing at the new hamster, diving back onto the computer... I felt like I was looking at myself through an invisible wall, watching the other me with a sense of mild curiosity...
Nothing had changed. Everything was waiting for me just the way I left it. I slipped back into family life as if I’d never left. And I accepted it, all of it, with that curious otherworldly feeling that comes over you in the mornings when part of you still lingers in a dream you had the night before and it just won’t let go, clinging on to the bits you remember because later in the day you will forget the dream, forget you had a dream, forget everything... and you don’t want to forget, don’t want to believe you will forget, and your mind just clings desperately and refuses to believe it. But it’s true. And you can’t avoid it forever.
CTY was over. The dream had ended.
But I think I’m still in denial.
Mm.. I’d really like to go over this and add in things that I know I forgot to put in (I made notes), but I’m feeling lazy at the moment. I’ll put up edits later. When is later? I don’t know...
That probably wasn’t a smart thing to do, because people will read over it now and probably never read the edited versions, but whatever. I’ll read the edited version - every word of it - months later when I have time to relive all of this, and that’s good enough for me.
