DECAMUN
This trip was mad fun. I want to encompass the whole thing without writing a novel, but it will probably be really long anyway. Sorry.
WEDNESDAY
Woke up around normal time, which was BAD, because I had to be formally ready much earlier than that. The perk was that, since I took so long, my parents left the house for like fifteen minutes to do something before they came back to drive me to school. That gave me the chance to throw casual clothes out of my suitcase, and replace them with a SUBWOOFER and SPEAKERS. XD
I had lots and lots of stuff to carry. A suitcase, a huge suitbag, and a messenger bag with my laptop in it. Bus ride to DECA was fun, played music on the travel speakers while people yelled about headphones or whatever. I eventually complied, I felt evil forcing everyone to listen to Rod Stewart or Jamiroquai. Hotel situation was weird. None of the rooms were ready except Ms. Mock's, 925. We soon found out that they split our school awkwardly all over the hotel, some on the 9th floor, some on the 11th, 12th, 14th, and just pretty much spread thin. George's room was ready first, so I got changed in there and forgot my pants there for the whole trip. Our room was supposed to be 920, but they switched us randomly and put us in 1148, which SUCKED. The room smelled like arse, it was disconnected from all other rooms, and it had ONE bed for FOUR guys. Not fun. We traded with Ms. Mock, somewhat forcefully. XD In retrospect, we probably should have kept the other room, because the hall monitor on the ninth floor sat RIGHT in front of 925, and was really strict. 1148 was right next to the stairs, and we could have enjoyed some post-curfew parties. Oh well. At least we got a second bed.
Mike and I had to do our presentation Wednesday night, and we were nervous as HECK. We only practiced twice before that night, and every time we practiced at the hotel, we made some really stupid mistake. When it was finally time, we had a few good signs. The girls in front of us, who were also on Creative Marketing, asked,
"Did you memorize your speech?"
"Of course, did you?"
*looks down at large notecards* "...Uh... yeah. Kind of."
Perfect. This gave us some confidence. So did seeing the other boards that weren't nearly as good as ours. We went in, and presented to the three judges. The guy on the left was a nice old man, who liked our project. The guy in the middle was a nice young man, who LOVED our project. The guy on the right was a grumpy middle-aged man, who was actually affiliated with a fire department. SCORE. At the end, the judge in the middle said, "It's actually hard to find anything wrong with your project... at all." Also said was, "When you go on to Nationals... I MEAN, if you go on to Nationals..." We figured that it would be really cruel if they said those things and we didn't place. But at this point, all we could do was hope for the best. After all, maybe our written portion sucked monkey.
That night was the first night I slept with these roomies: Steve Marx, Steve Mitchell, and Mike Longo. I knew Steve Marx for years, but I haven't gotten to hang with him for ages, so that was cool. Steve Mitchell I never knew before, but he was freaking HILARIOUS. Mike is Mike, I've been working with him all year on this project, and it was great to finally be able to just chill with him instead of stress out over DECA. Lots of interesting conversation and interesting sleeping positions, and that's all for that night.
THURSDAY
Since we competed the night before, Mike and I had nothing to really work in for Thursday. Or so I thought. I'm woken up at 9:10, with both Steves telling Mike and I to wake up. As it turns out, Mike and I had to go to FOCUS Training at 9:30. Yikes. So we get ready in a jiffy, head down there, and it turns out the sessions started at NINE. They're all an hour long, but you're allowed to miss one. Basically, this meant that we had already missed the one at 9:00, and would have to go to all the rest throughout the day. Darnit.
They actually weren't so bad. First was "Serving of Me", in which a Latrel of Memphis, Tennessee had us draw our outside-selves on a plate, and our "inside-selves" on the opposite side. I wrote fencing on the inside one, because I don't talk about that so much, but I forgot how common fencing was downstate. Like, everyone at the table was a fencer. It was cool. People at this table were the likes of Gary, from Lawng Aylend, Whitney, who is afraid of heights, and Alex, who I didn't really talk to. There were others, but I didn't talk to them either. After "Serving of Me", we had Mel of Chicago, Illinois tell us to break off into teams again. Fortunately for me, Alex was here, too! So she called across the room for me, and I joined her circle. I found out now that she was Alex Brown, from Roslyn High School, very friendly. I also met the amiable Victor Group, who is cousin of Allison Group! How about that. We were then SHACKLED TOGETHER and forced to make as long and as strong a chain as possible, comparative to the other groups. I became tape man, and Alex became loop girl, and with our powers combined, our group won. XD Third event was after lunch, and this was "Gridwalk". The game was too complicated to explain here, just think of it as live minesweeper for now. It was really fun. Our instructor was best friend of Latrel, also of Memphis Tennessee. This time I was with Matt Conway, and some kids from Central Square. We lost the first round, but won the other two. Lastly, we had "Etiquette Experts", which was cool. The instructor looked disturbingly like me, and was really funny. He mentioned a pirate, so I had great respect from him at any rate. He went over the basics of etiquette and manners, and recommended further reading. It's... really not as boring as it sounds! It was enjoyable.
Matt and I are coming back, and we hear that SU won against UCONN. I was incredulous at these words, UCONN is #1! But it was true. I felt for my father's pride. At least now we can enjoy seeing how well SU does. I hung with Naji's posse until Dinner. They are so freaking hilarious, it makes me feel out of place. As in, they do things that are so funny all the time, that they don't even laugh at them anymore. So I'm sitting there in a room of silence, breaking down in bouts of laughter. We listened to Negro Beats, which I got the impression was looping nonstop all through the trip, and then we went down to the conference center to enjoy another buffetstyle meal.
Thursday night was HILARIOUS. In short, it was all about me ripping Naji's heart out, Halo 2, "Documentaries" on HBO, drunk people hitting on George because he was holding a delicious domino's pizza, Steve Mitchell ripping on the hall monitor for a solid fifteen minutes, and drunk people, including Paul Bunyan himself, bothering us on our own floor before going to bed. MARKETING FOREVER! MARKETING FOREVER!
FRIDAY
Awards ceremony was today. We had to either leave early, and go to MUN on time, or stay for the whole thing, and come to MUN two hours late. Since I'm the only person who cares about MUN anymore, I'm the only one who wanted to go on time. Naji and George took pity on me, and left early with me too. Emilie, Mary, and Shannon had to stay through. Two trips for the nice bus driver we had. Awards rocked, because they announced chapter projects FIRST. Soon enough, Mike and I realized that we won FIRST FREAKING PLACE. WE WON CREATIVE MARKETING! XD!!! We're going to Dallas next month, and it's going to rock so hard! I'm really excited. Now we've got something really huge to work for.
MUN. MUNMUNMUN. MUN. MUNMUNMUN. MUN. MUNMUNMUN. MUN.
Naji and I come into committee. ...Agh, I don't know WHERE to start. It was so freaking awesome. I was a social butterfly, that's the best way I can put it. Immediately I was fighting for an award. Unfortunately, my lack of preparation held me back considerably... I had no resolution. I'll just say that I talked with/flirted with/got to know just about as many people as I could. Ethiopia is a fine example. Also a fine example of what not to do in life, in general. If you're passing notes back and forth to someone, and have to get up for a moment before passing a note back, DON'T FORGET YOU WERE TALKING TO THE PERSON. I did. I figured they were ignoring me all conference because of something I said. Really, she wasn't talking to me because I seemed to be ignoring her, lulz. We ate lunch and dinner with our committee-mates, and then headed back to meet up with the MUN team! I never got to seem them for an extended period of time until then. Except for when Ian and Lucas caught me talking to UK on the way to lunch, highly confused.
We blasted music on the speakers, ordered vast sums of food from the local homely Italian pizza place, and proceeded to party it up in our room. No one wanted to room with Marriott, so we had six guys in one room. Lukas slept on the couch, Ian slept in the crack between the bed and the wall, and the rest of us DIDN'T SLEEP AT ALL, but sat on the bed. XD We had Brittany and Kara come over, and they were really fun to hang with! I hope they weren't too bothered by Naji and my karaoke night. XD
SATURDAY
DEAD TIRED. We stayed up ALL FREAKING NIGHT. I was supposed to write my reso Friday night, but didn't. I've never BEEN so tired. We couldn't focus our eyes. We laughed until we cried about maple syrup. I brought a bottle of moisturizer to breakfast. Naji and I were falling asleep in committee. When we couldn't see anything from the sleepy haze, we figured we had to do something. We stepped out, and bought some energy drinks. I have new found respect for Caffeine. Naji got Code Red, I got Red Bull, and both kept us WIDE, WIDE AWAKE for another hour. After that we were sunk again, but still, they worked! After I was finally in an awake state, we socialized again. Not much work ensued. Let me think of a few people we met at this conference, who may help us out again next year!
UK - Kelsey. One of the strongest delegates. She was nice. Wore some snazzy shades the second day, and won a paper plate award just for that.
Somalia - Emily. Probably our best delegate. I found out at lunch that she went to Europe with the chair for MUN, and used one of her already finished resolutions for this committee. God, and we didn't even WRITE ours...
Israel - She was a senior, so she might not be at next years' conferences. She was really good, though. Took the opposing side to Venezuela in most cases, but I can't complain. That's her country.
China - Theev? She was really nice to Naji and I! We only really hung out with her and Israel at lunch.
Chair - Katie Yan! She was really really nice to us this year, but I think she's a senior too, so we won't get any "recognition bonuses" at Hilton.
Czech Republic - This guy was so freaking hilarious. We met him within the first five minutes we stepped out of committee, and we instantly got a long with him and Nigeria. Hopefully they'll join in next year, too.
It was insanely fun, and I can't wait until the next conference. Not to mention I'M GOING TO DALLAS! WOOHOOO!
P.S. Yeah, it's really long. Cookies to anyone who bothers to read the whole thing AND comment.
WEDNESDAY
Woke up around normal time, which was BAD, because I had to be formally ready much earlier than that. The perk was that, since I took so long, my parents left the house for like fifteen minutes to do something before they came back to drive me to school. That gave me the chance to throw casual clothes out of my suitcase, and replace them with a SUBWOOFER and SPEAKERS. XD
I had lots and lots of stuff to carry. A suitcase, a huge suitbag, and a messenger bag with my laptop in it. Bus ride to DECA was fun, played music on the travel speakers while people yelled about headphones or whatever. I eventually complied, I felt evil forcing everyone to listen to Rod Stewart or Jamiroquai. Hotel situation was weird. None of the rooms were ready except Ms. Mock's, 925. We soon found out that they split our school awkwardly all over the hotel, some on the 9th floor, some on the 11th, 12th, 14th, and just pretty much spread thin. George's room was ready first, so I got changed in there and forgot my pants there for the whole trip. Our room was supposed to be 920, but they switched us randomly and put us in 1148, which SUCKED. The room smelled like arse, it was disconnected from all other rooms, and it had ONE bed for FOUR guys. Not fun. We traded with Ms. Mock, somewhat forcefully. XD In retrospect, we probably should have kept the other room, because the hall monitor on the ninth floor sat RIGHT in front of 925, and was really strict. 1148 was right next to the stairs, and we could have enjoyed some post-curfew parties. Oh well. At least we got a second bed.
Mike and I had to do our presentation Wednesday night, and we were nervous as HECK. We only practiced twice before that night, and every time we practiced at the hotel, we made some really stupid mistake. When it was finally time, we had a few good signs. The girls in front of us, who were also on Creative Marketing, asked,
"Did you memorize your speech?"
"Of course, did you?"
*looks down at large notecards* "...Uh... yeah. Kind of."
Perfect. This gave us some confidence. So did seeing the other boards that weren't nearly as good as ours. We went in, and presented to the three judges. The guy on the left was a nice old man, who liked our project. The guy in the middle was a nice young man, who LOVED our project. The guy on the right was a grumpy middle-aged man, who was actually affiliated with a fire department. SCORE. At the end, the judge in the middle said, "It's actually hard to find anything wrong with your project... at all." Also said was, "When you go on to Nationals... I MEAN, if you go on to Nationals..." We figured that it would be really cruel if they said those things and we didn't place. But at this point, all we could do was hope for the best. After all, maybe our written portion sucked monkey.
That night was the first night I slept with these roomies: Steve Marx, Steve Mitchell, and Mike Longo. I knew Steve Marx for years, but I haven't gotten to hang with him for ages, so that was cool. Steve Mitchell I never knew before, but he was freaking HILARIOUS. Mike is Mike, I've been working with him all year on this project, and it was great to finally be able to just chill with him instead of stress out over DECA. Lots of interesting conversation and interesting sleeping positions, and that's all for that night.
THURSDAY
Since we competed the night before, Mike and I had nothing to really work in for Thursday. Or so I thought. I'm woken up at 9:10, with both Steves telling Mike and I to wake up. As it turns out, Mike and I had to go to FOCUS Training at 9:30. Yikes. So we get ready in a jiffy, head down there, and it turns out the sessions started at NINE. They're all an hour long, but you're allowed to miss one. Basically, this meant that we had already missed the one at 9:00, and would have to go to all the rest throughout the day. Darnit.
They actually weren't so bad. First was "Serving of Me", in which a Latrel of Memphis, Tennessee had us draw our outside-selves on a plate, and our "inside-selves" on the opposite side. I wrote fencing on the inside one, because I don't talk about that so much, but I forgot how common fencing was downstate. Like, everyone at the table was a fencer. It was cool. People at this table were the likes of Gary, from Lawng Aylend, Whitney, who is afraid of heights, and Alex, who I didn't really talk to. There were others, but I didn't talk to them either. After "Serving of Me", we had Mel of Chicago, Illinois tell us to break off into teams again. Fortunately for me, Alex was here, too! So she called across the room for me, and I joined her circle. I found out now that she was Alex Brown, from Roslyn High School, very friendly. I also met the amiable Victor Group, who is cousin of Allison Group! How about that. We were then SHACKLED TOGETHER and forced to make as long and as strong a chain as possible, comparative to the other groups. I became tape man, and Alex became loop girl, and with our powers combined, our group won. XD Third event was after lunch, and this was "Gridwalk". The game was too complicated to explain here, just think of it as live minesweeper for now. It was really fun. Our instructor was best friend of Latrel, also of Memphis Tennessee. This time I was with Matt Conway, and some kids from Central Square. We lost the first round, but won the other two. Lastly, we had "Etiquette Experts", which was cool. The instructor looked disturbingly like me, and was really funny. He mentioned a pirate, so I had great respect from him at any rate. He went over the basics of etiquette and manners, and recommended further reading. It's... really not as boring as it sounds! It was enjoyable.
Matt and I are coming back, and we hear that SU won against UCONN. I was incredulous at these words, UCONN is #1! But it was true. I felt for my father's pride. At least now we can enjoy seeing how well SU does. I hung with Naji's posse until Dinner. They are so freaking hilarious, it makes me feel out of place. As in, they do things that are so funny all the time, that they don't even laugh at them anymore. So I'm sitting there in a room of silence, breaking down in bouts of laughter. We listened to Negro Beats, which I got the impression was looping nonstop all through the trip, and then we went down to the conference center to enjoy another buffetstyle meal.
Thursday night was HILARIOUS. In short, it was all about me ripping Naji's heart out, Halo 2, "Documentaries" on HBO, drunk people hitting on George because he was holding a delicious domino's pizza, Steve Mitchell ripping on the hall monitor for a solid fifteen minutes, and drunk people, including Paul Bunyan himself, bothering us on our own floor before going to bed. MARKETING FOREVER! MARKETING FOREVER!
FRIDAY
Awards ceremony was today. We had to either leave early, and go to MUN on time, or stay for the whole thing, and come to MUN two hours late. Since I'm the only person who cares about MUN anymore, I'm the only one who wanted to go on time. Naji and George took pity on me, and left early with me too. Emilie, Mary, and Shannon had to stay through. Two trips for the nice bus driver we had. Awards rocked, because they announced chapter projects FIRST. Soon enough, Mike and I realized that we won FIRST FREAKING PLACE. WE WON CREATIVE MARKETING! XD!!! We're going to Dallas next month, and it's going to rock so hard! I'm really excited. Now we've got something really huge to work for.
MUN. MUNMUNMUN. MUN. MUNMUNMUN. MUN. MUNMUNMUN. MUN.
Naji and I come into committee. ...Agh, I don't know WHERE to start. It was so freaking awesome. I was a social butterfly, that's the best way I can put it. Immediately I was fighting for an award. Unfortunately, my lack of preparation held me back considerably... I had no resolution. I'll just say that I talked with/flirted with/got to know just about as many people as I could. Ethiopia is a fine example. Also a fine example of what not to do in life, in general. If you're passing notes back and forth to someone, and have to get up for a moment before passing a note back, DON'T FORGET YOU WERE TALKING TO THE PERSON. I did. I figured they were ignoring me all conference because of something I said. Really, she wasn't talking to me because I seemed to be ignoring her, lulz. We ate lunch and dinner with our committee-mates, and then headed back to meet up with the MUN team! I never got to seem them for an extended period of time until then. Except for when Ian and Lucas caught me talking to UK on the way to lunch, highly confused.
We blasted music on the speakers, ordered vast sums of food from the local homely Italian pizza place, and proceeded to party it up in our room. No one wanted to room with Marriott, so we had six guys in one room. Lukas slept on the couch, Ian slept in the crack between the bed and the wall, and the rest of us DIDN'T SLEEP AT ALL, but sat on the bed. XD We had Brittany and Kara come over, and they were really fun to hang with! I hope they weren't too bothered by Naji and my karaoke night. XD
SATURDAY
DEAD TIRED. We stayed up ALL FREAKING NIGHT. I was supposed to write my reso Friday night, but didn't. I've never BEEN so tired. We couldn't focus our eyes. We laughed until we cried about maple syrup. I brought a bottle of moisturizer to breakfast. Naji and I were falling asleep in committee. When we couldn't see anything from the sleepy haze, we figured we had to do something. We stepped out, and bought some energy drinks. I have new found respect for Caffeine. Naji got Code Red, I got Red Bull, and both kept us WIDE, WIDE AWAKE for another hour. After that we were sunk again, but still, they worked! After I was finally in an awake state, we socialized again. Not much work ensued. Let me think of a few people we met at this conference, who may help us out again next year!
UK - Kelsey. One of the strongest delegates. She was nice. Wore some snazzy shades the second day, and won a paper plate award just for that.
Somalia - Emily. Probably our best delegate. I found out at lunch that she went to Europe with the chair for MUN, and used one of her already finished resolutions for this committee. God, and we didn't even WRITE ours...
Israel - She was a senior, so she might not be at next years' conferences. She was really good, though. Took the opposing side to Venezuela in most cases, but I can't complain. That's her country.
China - Theev? She was really nice to Naji and I! We only really hung out with her and Israel at lunch.
Chair - Katie Yan! She was really really nice to us this year, but I think she's a senior too, so we won't get any "recognition bonuses" at Hilton.
Czech Republic - This guy was so freaking hilarious. We met him within the first five minutes we stepped out of committee, and we instantly got a long with him and Nigeria. Hopefully they'll join in next year, too.
It was insanely fun, and I can't wait until the next conference. Not to mention I'M GOING TO DALLAS! WOOHOOO!
P.S. Yeah, it's really long. Cookies to anyone who bothers to read the whole thing AND comment.