MY SUPER AWESOME AMAZING DAY
Well, first off, I've finally begun to be more social. Where I once was unable to stomach alcohol and always felt very anti-social at most gatherings, last night proved how good Boston has been for me. I still don't ever want to get drunk, and I don't really enjoy alcohol, but I at least I know I can handle myself responsibly and still allow myself to relax. I feel like I'm beginning to make more friends here, and I find that I like the taste it leaves in my mouth (soul) and I want to keep going.
Anyway, last night I was at my friend Amy's house, and I had a few grenadine-sprite-vodka concoctions that I enjoyed very much, and I never even slurred my words. I talked a lot with the decent amount of people that were there, but I mostly spent time with Amy's roommate Danielle, discussing musicals and singing karaoke on their PS2 game, Sing Star. I ended up spending the night there, because we had decided to all go to this today. I woke up early this morning (well, 8 am is EARLY to most college students) and dashed home so I could shower and eat and prepare myself.
I was really excited about this. I'd seen videos of a similar event here (go check it out, it's quite amusing) and I was worried that I'd gotten my hopes too high.
On the train ride there, I kept looking around me at the students (Boston has a HUGE student population, and my neighborhood is teeming with student life) and trying to figure out if any of them were going. Our train was delayed because there was a medical emergency at the station ahead of us (luckily we were meeting an hour before the event) and I started chatting with the guy next to me, because he was jittery and I had a feeling he was going. Also, he had a huge wooden stick and a bag of props, so that was also an indicator. It turned out that not only was he going, he had a big part in organizing the dance party. His name is Ethan. We continued to chat and separated when we got the station.
I met up with my friends and we walked around a bit and I bought an interesting olive-gray tank top with front pocket:
It'd weird, but I like it and it was $10. :D
After I'd bought it, it was about time to head back to the statue of Samuel Adams in front of Fanueil Hall (the pre-arranged meeting place). We did and there weren't NEARLY as many people I'd expected (over 1,000 RSVP'd) but there was a healthy amount. Anyway, 1:00 rolled around and grinning, we all played our iPods. The music was a pleasant techno-like beat, and a woman's voice welcomed us to the social experiment and told us to look for someone dressed in black holding a box with index cards. This person was a bouncer and there were 5 of them total. Guess who the nearest bouncer to us was? Ethan! Anyway, I got a neon orange card.
Then, we were instructed to take a look around and get to know our fellow dancers. We shook hands and gave high-fives. We were told not to hold back. It was fun! It was off to a great start, and we were all smiling. Then, we were told to turn to face Fanueil Hall. We all did so in close-enough unison. We were told to jump up and down and pump our right fists in the air. Then, we had to squat down, pose like, "The Thinker," and freeze. We stayed that way for about a minute, and I heard people behind us asking what was going on. After that, we began a game of reverse freeze-tag. People with yellow cards were told to skip around and touch people on the shoulder. When you were touched, you skipped around and touched someone else. We did this until everyone was dancing again, and it didn't take long. It was a lot of fun. I actually didn't touch anyone myself because most people were unfrozen by the time I was touched. Then we stood, shook our limbs, and grabbed a partner for a good ol' time of do-see-doing. I really wanted to get the full experience, so I broke away from my friends and made sure to dance with complete strangers. This lasted another minute or so. Then we broke into groups by our card colors, and made circles with all of us facing in toward each other, dancing all the while. The orange group was pretty big (although maybe equal to the other groups, I'm not sure. We were right by the entrance to Fanueil Hall, and I could see people looking confused and taking our pictures while we danced. Then, the narrator told us that, "since it's winter, it would be nice to start a synchronized swimming team." Our moves were, two stroke to the right, two to the left, "swim" to the middle, and backstroke out. We did this continuously. It was crazy, here I was t total strangers and having the time of my life!
After that, we broke from our groups and just danced for a while! We all looked dorky. Danielle was orange too, and she found me again, and we danced together for a bit. Then, we were told that we had exercised our bodies and it was time to exercise our minds with a geography game. We were told to clap and point to the Samuel Adams statue, clap and point to Quincy Market, then City Hall, Fenway, our house, and our new best friend, and the tallest dancer, the dancer with the best sunglasses. Then at the count of 3, we were all to scream, "OLE!" We were told to look around. Did we recognize anyone? AND WHO WAS THERE BUT ETHAN STANDING ON TOP OF A HUGE SNOW PILE DRESSED AS MOSES.
We had to line up behind him, put our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us, and CONGA!
The actual conga line turned into RUN AROUND AND TWIRL AND BE CRAZY LINE, but it was still loads of fun, even if a conga line might have been more effective in freaking out the rest of the people in Fanueil Hall. We were running the full length of the hall, and we stopped at the huge pile of snow seen in the picture above. We danced around a bit more, then were told that when the song finished, to turn off our iPods and walk away as discreetly as possible. We all applauded, and walked away. It was possibly the best 13 consecutive minutes of my life.
As were walking away, we heard rumors about a freeze mission going on shortly after the Silent Dance Party finished.
Click to viewEthan has also mentioned something about this to me, so we headed to government center to see if something would be going on. After a few minutes, someone came and got the groups that had been waiting and we went to another area of government center. The freeze mission was set for inside the long, narrow food court of Quincy Market at 1:45. We were told to keep our alarms silent so as not to bring attention to ourselves before necessary. If, later on, anyone asked us what it was about, we were to pretend not to know what they were talking about. If police asked us (although it was unlikely) we were to just say that we were having fun with some friends (they'd never experienced trouble in the past). I think the guy said that 8 other cities were doing freeze missions today also.
On our way to Fanueil Hall, I spotted Ethan. I hugged him and thanked him for organizing such a fun event, and I would definitely be attending next month's giant pillow fight. Danielle and I were separated from the rest and when 1:45 came about, we were standing in front of an exit and I was holding a brochure with one hand and my other on Danielle's shoulder. Danielle was looking and pointing at the brochure, while I was staring the the half-eaten cookie of the girl a few feet away frozen mid-bite, with my mouth agape. It was difficult; we hadn't planned on being on front of an exit. People kept bumping into us, and saying, "Excuse me," but of course we couldn't move. Unfortunately, staring at the cookie meant I couldn't look at how people were reacting (though maybe it's a blessing because it was difficult enough not to laugh and Danielle and I had to restrain ourselves from giggling). I know a few people reacted to us- one woman squeezed by when we ignored her, "Excuse me," and walked around to stare at us in the faces. However, for the most part it seemed that most people weren't noticing us. I heard that a lot of adults didn't take notice, whereas young kids were staring at the participants with wide eyes. I really like that idea, of adults being too busy to notice while all the little kids are wondering what the big kids are all doing?!
Anyway, the 5 minutes ended and unfortunately no one asked us what had happened so we couldn't feign ignorance. Amy told us later that where they had been, an old woman had stood up right next to her and wondered if it was a sorority pledge stunt, but she left before the 5 minutes were up and Amy could pretend not to know. XD
After that, we all headed back to Amy's place (with a stop at a grocery store on the way). I spent the afternoon and evening in her apartment, drinking very little and hanging out. I, on a whim, decided to dye my hair, and Amy was nice enough to do it for me. It's maroon enough that I feel it's expressing a tiny spark of creativity, but brown enough not to get me in trouble at work. I think it's a bit uneven, but overall I'm really happy with it. Thanks Amy!
So...that's about it! I went home relatively early, got some McDonald's for a late dinner (I was craving it! :P), and have been relaxing. It's been an amazing day, as you can see from this post's subject, and I think it's just the thing I've needed to chill out after a stressful few midterm weeks. Tomorrow I'll work on a bit of homework and have hang in my jammies. I might do some laundry. My dad and Bronie are in the Dominican Republic on a much-deserved vacation, so my weekends are my own until they return a week from Monday.
I'm just so happy right now.
How was your day?