| My parents asked me if I learned anything the night I got back from California, and I made a mental list. Marshall then used the idea first, but whatever. 1. Belts are not just a fashion statement.
The night we got to San Francisco to stay in a hostel (which is a crazy idea, might I add), everyone went out to eat dinner along the wharf area. I was going back with James and we were coming up on the giant hill that was right before the hostel. We decided to run. We turn onto the final straightaway, the actual road, when I realize I am not going to make it. Why? My pants were falling down. I was wearing a new pair of jeans and thus realized too late that I wasn't going to get very far. With my pants around my ankles, I am yelling, "My pants fell off!" At this time, a runner with a light on his helmet jogs past. I hope they didn't realize anything was up. After San Francisco, the only time I didnt wear a belt was when Marshall wanted to use it since he didn't have a black one for Chalk Talk. 2. Freed wasn't kidding when he said to bring a jacket.
On the Golden Gate Bridge, I had to take off my new Giants baseball cap because the wind was so bad that it was going to be blown off by the wind, no matter how tight I made it. I was shivering pretty badly, and despite taking over an hour to walk the length of the bridge and back, I did not feel the least bit tired since I was too cold to feel anything else. I really could've used that belt, too. I had to walk holding my hat and my pants up. 3. Sean Connery is badass.
After San Francisco, we went to Merced to stay two days in a Best Western to revolve around our visit to Yosemite National Park. One night, before we needed to wake up early the next morning, the movie channel we were watching started showing "The Rock." I was coincidentally reading one of the books on Alcatraz I had bought on the island's gift shop then, and became drawn in even though I was ready for bed. It had Sean Connery in it, who everyone already knows is great. His SNL dialogues with Alex Trebek on Celebrity Jeopardy! are one of the best gags in the history of the show. But he just about single-handedly took down an elite corps of marines under the greatest general from the Vietnam War. It probably wasn't acting, either. They must've told him afterwards that they were just filming a movie. 4. William and Jack are noisy bedfellows.
Since Marshall and I had to split a bed at Middleton and it went peacefully, Jack and William were left to share a bed. To be honest, I'm not quite prepared to delve much further into the subject. I apologize to the entire fourth, fifth, and sixth floors on their behalf. 5. Some important people fail at telling time.
The morning of my first topic test, Equations and Inequalities, I sank in to a familiar routine where I laid down and slowly woke up while waiting on the other three people in my room to get ready. I actually ran a lot of it, though, since I answered the wake up calls and I was the one urging whoever wanted to eat breakfast to take a shower now. This way, I left myself with exactly enough time to be ready with about five or ten minutes to spare before my test. Apparently, I missed the memo that you are late if you don't show up early enough. I arrived in the main ballroom five minutes earlier than the schedule said to find a packed house and the Berkeley Prep guy who was the voice guy for this particular round was scorning us for being late. He then contradicted himself by saying that we should've known to be early because life is like that. According to that, we weren't late, they were just starting early. If I had had my schedule with me, I would've given it to him.
For final awards night, we were told to be downstairs for dinner by 6:30 all dressed up and ready for the awards ceremony right after. Once again, I must've missed something. I was the last Chiles person on the fifth floor when I took the elevator downstairs at 6:25 and walked into the lobby. All of the Chiles guys were on the staircase to the second floor, and Freed ushered me up there in an aggravated sort of way. Then, someone told me that he was just about to take pictures without me. Pictures? I was told to be downstairs at 6:30. You people should be thankful I show up to everything five minutes early all week. Normally, I'm twenty minutes late. I didn't even want to be in any pictures, anyway. Ya'll wouldn't have missed me, anyway. 6. Smaller trophies are better.
After the state convention in April, the giant trophies I won for doing not very significant things (trophies for places as low as I was finishing were still taller than anything I had seen before) had taken up all the room on top of the shelfcase thingy I had to start using after my originally small case got filled up in middle school (the trophies were much smaller yet were given when I would place in first at stuff). The trophies at nationals were a lot smaller and are also entertaining to the easily entertained like me. I get to spin stuff around! 7. Water parks are still ew.
We had to go after our final topic test on Thursday to Ragin' Waters, Sacramento's hyped-up water park. I wish it had been a choice because I didn't really want to go. I wasn't the only one, but my bad attitude didn't make things any better. A lot of people had fun, but I just wish I could've gone back to my hotel room and take a nice, long, quiet nap. 8. Don't trust vending machines in Minneapolis.
I went to ask William and James if they wanted to go somewhere in the airport while we waited for our plane to eat lunch (for everyone else, it was dinner because, remember, my eating schedule is off of everybody elses). They were getting the proper change for a drink from the vending machine, but an Aquafina was stuck between the glass and the railing of C3. One of them came up with the idea to get the flavored Aquafina off of B3 so that it would be two drinks for the price of one. The vending machine won again, though, as it got stuck, too. Now, there were two drinks so close to falling that William starting banging on the machine to get them to fall (the machine did give them their money back, though). He stopped for a second as two officials came zooming by on their cart and looked at him sort of weird. He then proceeded to finally knock loose B3, which in turn fell directly on C3 and unjammed it. Now they got two drinks for the price of none. 9. The guy sitting next to me on the way back to Atlanta wasn't a terrorist.
As some of you know, my dad is a six foot something bald guy (he shaves his head, the only thing I do the exact opposite of what he would do since I haven't gotten a haircut in many months) who even I would find easily intimidating and scary if I didn't know him. Well, on the way back home from Sacramento, Jack wasn't with us since his family picked him up the morning we left. On the flight to Minneapolis, I say next to James, instead. But, on the flight to Atlanta, someone had Jack's seat, and he didn't want to give it up since he apparently liked aisle seats. Thus, Marshall and I were cut off from escape if he was a terrorist. Why did I fear he might be? He was bald. In fact, most of the people who I saw walking about on the plane were tall, bald men, as odd as that seems. Instead of my usual worries of my head exploding from some freak high altitude accident like I did on the other flights (no, seriously, I did really badly), I was considering what I would do if he decided to stand up and announce he was hijacking the plane. Since I was sitting next to him, he would either kill me, meaning it would be up to Marshall to stop him in my place (I never told him because it would be weird with the potential terrroist next to me), or I would have to jump at him, risking my life but knowing that if he killed me, it would give the people around him enough time to overcome and subdue him, making me a hero. I was the most relieved person in the world when the wheels on the plane touched down. |
