7:33 a.m. - 2002-08-06
CTY! I am the Girl Who Swallowed The Glowstick
Quote of the Day: "I love you all. I love the passionfruit." (because I didn't explain it in the last entry)
Ok guys, many apologies for the previous idiotic entry, which I'll probably go back and delete at some point because I can't believe my rambling stupidity. I really didn't mean to write an entry with random descriptions of people, I promise you. This one, hopefully will be about CTY. But not about the ethics class, as I mentioned before, because that's going to get its own entry.
So. I'll go by daily schedule, because it's easiest.
7:20 -- Alarm goes off. Rachel takes a shower in the morning, I take showers in the evening. That worked out pretty well.
7:55 -- Dakota, Dana, Sarah and I leave for breakfast. The other girls usually leave late and get to class barely on time. Toward the second week we started being invaded by other people using the campus with sports camps and the Urban Youth Leadership Institute and such, so the dining hall got really crowded. Breakfast got infinitely better from red grapes when I discovered English muffins, the toaster and peanut butter.
8:25 -- We have to be at our meeting spot for class.
8:30-11:30 -- Morning class. We get a twenty-minute or so break around ten. Morning class is the hardest, because it's the longest chunk and you know that you still have afternoon class and study hall to make it through.
11:30 -- Lunch. The food was bad. I'm spoiled, so I think I had it better than Lauren and Alexa or Kelsey (hey, at least they always had desserts, though that was REALLY not good of me to eat so many). I almost always had salad, though they got rid of the dressing I liked, and they always had pasta, but the only meat they really ever had was chicken nuggets in some form. That gets sooooo boring.
12:00 -- Finish lunch, hang around for an hour because you're not allowed in dorms. So we usually went to the campus bookstore, and I usually went to the office for some reason or another (maybe for medicine in the health office, because I too got the CTY plague again, or maybe to talk to Tony and see if the Harry Potter Appreciation Day was going to happen, or just to wander around). Then Dakota would go outside in the sun and read "The Grapes of Wrath" or listen to Anthony's cd player and I'd join her until I couldn't stand it and then go inside in the air conditioning with Sarah and Dana. I got a farmer's tan, a neck tan (not many low-cut shirts), a watch tan, a ring tan, and a Birkenstock tan, and I really wasn't outside that much!
12:55 -- Be at meeting spots for afternoon classes.
1:00-3:00 -- Afternoon classes. We usually had a ten or fifteen minute break around two. This segment was much easier because it was shorter, but the three quizzes he gave us were all during this period. Twice in afternoon class we watched movies with the other ethics class: "Les Miserables" and "Citizen Kane."
3:05 -- First time we're allowed back in the dorms! Quick change, switch stuff in bag. Check where your activity is, pray for air conditioning, hit yourself on the head for not choosing an activity with air conditioning, try to sneak into a different activity.
3:20 -- Move to daily activities. You sign up for them every day after hall meeting (around 10:00 PM). I did letter writing, concentration games, interpreting the song "American Pie," learning how to be a cruel overlord (I wore my One Ring necklace, haha), hanging out with this one cool RA, Mafia, celebrity gossip, watching the movie "Empire Records," and a Harry Potter birthday bash. That was my idea, I was very happy, it happened on July 31, of course, and Kate and Karel did it, two of the best RAs! First we played Quidditch. I was Hermione. We had four chasers, one keeper and a Seeker per team, also a bludger, which was a human, and if they touch you on your left elbow you're out for thirty seconds. Our broomsticks were the kind of noodles you use in pools and our wands were white pipecleaners. We kicked around the Quaffle. The Seeker ran around looking for the Snitch, a yellow ball of yarn. In the end no one could find the Snitch including the RAs so we all went over to the half of the field they thought it was in and looked together. Taube ended up finding it, who was the Keeper on my team, so we won. Yay! Afterward we went into the pub and had birthday cake and talked about Harry Potter and it was fun. I wore my "Cowy Potter and the Goblet of Milk" t-shirt and my Harry Potter toe socks and my Harry Potter bandaids. I know, I know, I'm a dork.
4:30 -- Move to weekly activities. You sign up for them Sunday night and have the same ones all week long. My first week I did Charm School, which Karel (our RA) had told us was a really funny version of Miss Manners but it didn't turn out to be that funny. My second week I did What We May Be with Karel and Kate, a sort of self-empowerment, self-expression journal-writing activity. That was good. There were only three other girls (Pippa, Emily, and Michelle from Kate's hall) so we all really bonded and talked and it was nice. Once when we were talking about self-image we made a trip to the big bathroom with full-length mirrors and had to talk about body parts we liked. That was interesting too, and Karel and Kate are really fun RA's. The last week, which was only three days, I did "Best of the Worst," which sucked. The first day we looked at three awful video-things (one on 401K, one on British parliament, one on taxes) and had to decide which of these three worsts, was the best. The next day we did the same with music and the day after with food.
5:30 -- Back to dorms. We have to get everything ready for study hall (including music, of course!) because you're not allowed back in. Apparently, a student went back to the dorms during lunch and killed himself a few years ago, so now they're totally overprotective. (It wasn't our site, but all the Hamiltonians moved to Union last year which moved to Siena this year.) So even during "American Pie," when in the chorus at all other sites they scream "DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! MORE! MORE! MORE! MORE!" we didn't have that at Siena because of him.
5:45 -- Kicked out of the dorms to go to dinner. I'm serious, kicked out, one night Dakota and I were going to skip dinner because I wanted to pack and we had pizza coming that night (we were allowed to get pizza once a week), but an RA found us and we got in trouble!
6:55 -- Have to be at meeting spot for study hall.
7:00-9:00 -- Study hall, with a ten or fifteen minute break at eight o'clock. Ben (teacher) and Patrick (TA) gave us SO much reading, no one ever finished, and lots of questions from the reading. Study hall greatly improved once Patrick pointed out that we could bring music, but in my case, less reading got done! My cds went alllll overrrr the place but I got most of them back... Matt wanted to listen to "Save the Last Dance" and one of David's rap mixes... Anthony wanted the rap mixes... Rachel and Rosie wanted "Rent"... Taube wanted "The Producers" and "Guys & Dolls"... Anyway, more on ethics class in general in another entry. It merits its own entry.
9:05 -- For everyone else, social time out on the quad. I only went the first night, and I regret that now, but I'll go back next year. See, Mom really worries if you don't call every day, so this was usually my time to get back to the dorm and call home, and take a longer shower.
9:45 -- Hall meeting. Whatever announcements the staff had given Karel, talking about what was going on that weekend or in activities, distribution of mail. I got a LOT of mail. Lots of letters from Mom, of course, lots of letters from Alexa, one letter from Kelsey (and she sent another from Canada, but I didn't get it), two letters from Missy, a letter from Sonia, a letter from Katie, a letter from Zach, two letters from Gramie, one letter from Grumps, two letters from Aunt Dale, a package from Kris with two mix cds, I felt so special!!!!!! :)
10:00 -- You think I can get ready for bed in half an hour?
10:30 -- Lights out, phones outside the door. They were so, so strict about this. Putting a towel under the door didn't work, they even saw if you just left the bathroom light on because you don't like the dark and closed your blinds. They had people patrolling the corridors and walking around outside screaming, "FOURTH FLOOR, LIGHTS OUT!" (Yes, I was on the fourth floor. 51 steps. And 45 steps to the third floor for classes. Damn.) I usually talked with Rachel for a while though, she always told me all the gossip after every dance (who hooked up with who and who looked pissed at the end of the night) and she was good to talk to. But yes, that was my days.
Soooo... now I'll write about the weekends.
The first weekend, Friday July 19th, we had an '80's-themed dance. I didn't do the theme, as always, but the RAs did and they looked really funny! It was a GOOD dance, I actually recognized some of the canon songs... brief canon explanation... there are a whole bunch of songs that they play at every CTY dance, it differs from site to site, but there are some key ones (for example, every dance ends with these three songs in this order: "Forever Young" by Alphaville, "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin, "American Pie" by Don McLean). So I'm making a list of the canon songs and I'm going to make myself a mix cd! Alright, back to the dance, yeah, it was good, because not a lot of people had hooked up yet, so my whole group of girlfriends were just dancing together and having fun. By the second dance more of them had hooked up and it wasn't as much fun, but the last one was fun... more on that later. Anyway, the most interesting thing at the first dance was that I learned how to grind. They had forbidden it at my first two sites. They were playing "Baby Got Back" and then Wang was on my butt. Interesting experience. This is what you learn at CTY.
July 20th. The morning was cartoon morning, and I chose to watch "The Emperor's New Groove." Then we had a carnival, which I found pretty boring. We did it for points, but didn't make many points. I played Mafia and Spit and wandered around wearing my awesome Matrixlike sunglasses looking bored. Then we had to go to Singled Out, a sort of silly dating game, where they ask the contestants questions like "where would you want to go on your first date?" and they have to answer and move to a certain spot for that answer, A, B, or C, and then the prize, who can't see anyone, has to answer what he/she would want and the others get eliminated until there's finally only one persun left and then they're allowed to see them. Matt from my class was the prize for the girls, and Sarah (not from my hall) was the prize for the guys, and the two of them ended up going out. After Singled Out we had an all-camp meeting to talk about the teasing and how it did not build a community.
In the evening was Casino Night, realllly boring, but we had fun getting ready, because Rachel (who had been there the session before) told me that the point of the night is to look slutty. We had never even dressed up at my other sites! So she tried to make me wear a skank tank. I was very much amused by the name. I'll have to remember that. :) I just ended up letting Hannah give me serious eye makeup. haha. I didn't like Casino Night because I don't know how to play any of the games, but it was so funny watching Taube, who was sneakily stealing money. Kleptomaniac! Afterward we had a sleepover, technically it's a limit of four people per room but Karel allows us five because there are only ten in the hall, Sarah didn't want to, we weren't organized at all, so I ended up sneakily illegally as a sixth persun (Karel later found out, but I don't know how) with Hannah, Taube, Pippa, Emily, and Rachel. Bad Jess.
Sunday July 21st. Sci-fi movies in the morning instead of cartoons so I didn't get up. In the afternoon was Woodstock, which was a lot more fun than the carnival. I tie-dyed a pair of sports socks, got Legolas braids in my hair (SQUEE!), stole a lot of fake flowers, got peace love happiness symbols painted by Karel on my arm, and listened to the 60's and canon music they played. Afterward Dakota and I were wandering around looking for a good tree to photograph us hugging and Wang joined us and he started to hump the tree, which was very funny. Then we found Dana and made a tummy circle (everyone's head is on someone's stomach) and lay there for a long time and it was really comfy but then they made us go to dinner. In the evening we had study hall. Yeugh.
Friday, July 26. The second dance was themed ClubCTY, but it wasn't as much fun. Hannah had hooked up with Scott and Pippa had hooked up with Anthony and Rachel was semi-hooking up with Jason which made Taube really upset. Plus they didn't play as good music. I spent most of the dance with Dakota, and surprisingly, it was over really fast, so that was ok.
Saturday, July 27. After debating between "The Princess Bride" and "Clue," I decided to watch "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" in the morning, because I'd never seen it before, and I've seen TPB about a million times. Both very funny movies. In the afternoon we had fun in the sun. I ended up finding a nice SHADY spot and lying there for two hours, listening to music and writing to Alexa. Eventually Dakota and Dana joined me and Matt came over and sat on me and he was all wet and tried to make me do somersaults. I didn't. He says he'll make me do them next year. Ha.
In the evening was talent show, and we got there late as always so got really shitty seats, but oh well. Taube was in it singing "Adelaide's Lament" from "Guys & Dolls," so we all had to cheer her on. Unfortunately, my camera broke at the beginning of the second act! So I didn't get a picture of her!! Dana says she'll send me one, but still, it made me sad. :( In the evening we had another sleepover. This time Karel counted people off to make sure everyone was included. I was with Hannah, Taube, Rachel, and Dana, and we had fun. Rachel went to sleep early but Hannah and I had so much fun reading Maxim magazine, if you're not a guy that magazine is hysterical. Then after Taube fell asleep and Dana was drifting off we stayed up past one in the morning quoting about every single funny line from "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail."
Saturday, July 28. In the morning was a murder mystery. Dakota and Dana did it and so did Taube, Taube actually won (the prize was an ice cream social), but the rest of us were too tired. Taube brought us bagels in bed from the dining hall, which was so sweet. In the afternoon there were a whole bunch of activities to choose from, and I decided to go watch "Friends," but I'd seen all the episodes they chose. :( Oh well. Afterward we had an all-camp meeting to talk about the teasing again. Study hall in the evening.
Thursday, August 1. The last dance had a Titanic theme. They cancelled activities, so we all figured that since it was the second-to-last day they'd give us the time to pack or get ready for the dance, but they made us go to study hall! It was a good study hall -- we all watched a funny Woody Allen film, "Love and Death -- but, still, none one had even started packing and we left the next day!
Roight, so the last dance. Lots of stories about this. I wore the brown dress I wore to Lauren's graduation. We got there fifteen minutes late, as always. I went into the bathroom and put in this awesome purple glowstick that I'd bought like a year ago, it was one and a half inches or so, the kind in your mouth. Soooo cool. So then we go into the dance and I'm just hanging out with Dakota because nothing's really started yet. (Dana and Sarah both spent the dances downstairs in the "pub," where they had cards and board games and such. By this point, Pippa had broken up with Anthony, and she was hooking up with Wang.) Matt finds us and sees the glowstick and reallllllly wants it. See, he's a raver, so he loves glowsticks. He asks me to take it out and show it to him, so I let him see, but then he grabs it and pops it in HIS mouth! EWWWWW!
So I chase him around for two songs and finally I catch him and he tells me he swallowed it. I don't believe him, so I tell him to go to the bathroom and puke it back up. He goes to the bathroom, Dakota and I wait outside, lo and behold, when he emerges, the glowstick is back in his mouth. I chase him around again. I catch him. He takes it out and gives it to Max. Max puts it in HIS mouth. YUCK YUCK YUCK YUCK. When Max drops it I grab it and run to the bathroom. Sheesh! I run it under hot water for about ten minutes and then finally put it back in my mouth. I go back to the dance. Matt makes me promise I'll lend it to him for when they rave. So we all dance a few songs, I'm grinding with Anthony and then someone said something funny and I laughed and stuck out the glowstick at them and must have pulled it in too quickly because...
I swallowed it.
Yes, I'm the girl who swallowed the glowstick.
So Dakota and I run around trying to find Matt, who really did swallow it, but he was able to get it back up. He tries to give me the Heimlich maneuver and is MOST unsucessful. Rob finds us, deems it the "most amusing medical misfortune" that he has ever witnessed at CTY, and drags me to the health office. They laugh at me too. They don't know what to do with me but don't want me to try to puke it back up because it would be worse if it ruptures. I find the wrapper and it's non-toxic, which is good. They want me to take a laxative. I do NOT want to take a laxative on my last night! They threaten to call my parents if I refuse to take the laxative. They call in Tony, the residential dean, but don't know that I have a good relationship with Tony (I've been in to talk to him to ask about setting up a Harry Potter day on his birthday, to ask if we could have 5 people for the last sleepover, and he even arranged to let me get a small CTY t-shirt, even though most people get larges). So Tony's really nice and asks them if there's another option. They tell me I can go have milk and a cookie (yum) and just let it come out the other end. Matt is mad that he didn't get to rave with the glowstick. Hahahaha. I leave a message for my parents on their cell phone (they were visiting Lauren & Alexa at dance camp) hysterically laughing; Mom thought I followed a glowstick and Dad thought I swallowed a gluestick.
Milk and the cookie, back to the dance after missing "Time Warp" and "Love Shack" (both canon songs) and even the song of the theme, "My Heart Will Go On." Oh well. Everyone who knew who I was somehow found out about the glowstick from someone else, so everyone's coming over and asking if I'm okay, and trying to see if I'm glowing, hahahahahaha. It was so funny. Definitely the best dance. Because then Matt came over and gave me a goodbye kiss (but I was talking, so it didn't count) and said that I was beautiful. And that was the first time a guy had ever said that I was beautiful (Raymond from CTY my first year doesn't count). So that was a realllllly good dance.
By "Stairway to Heaven" everyone was sobbing hysterically. The whole camp formed a big circle and swayed together and the nevermores got in the center and huddled together and cried. "American Pie." The last song, the last dance -- ever.
The last sleepover, since Emily and Rachel were nevermores, they slept with (oooh, dirty) Pippa and Hannah. We couldn't have more than four since administration patrolled the halls and it was only Karel who gave us permission. Taube was pissed at not being included on that sleepover, so she decided she did NOT want to have a sleepover, and Sarah didn't, so I slept in Dana and Dakota's room and Rosie slept over too. It was a pretty shitty sleepover, Rosie went to sleep right away, and Dakota got on the phone to friends in Alaska.
The last day, I got up at 4:45 AM so I could start organizing stuff to get packed. No, I'm not totally crazy, we had passionfruit at 5:30 AM anyway. Passionfruit... how to describe it. Well, picture fiftyish people sitting together in a circle on wet grass as the sun rises. One persun is talking. Every once in a while, everyone simultaneously takes a sip from a cup. Yes, we got some strange stares.
It's for the nevermores... the people who are sixteen and aren't allowed back next year... and they're each allowed to bring someone, so I came too... and you go around in a circle and everyone says something about what CTY means to them, and some people were making like fifteen-minute long speeches, but CTY means so much to so many people. After each persun is done, they say "I love you all, I love the passionfruit" and everyone takes a sip of the passionfruit juice. I can't explain how special it is. After all the nevermores talk you go back around the circle and everyone else gets to speak, but by the time we got to me it had been three hours and we were nearly late for class (the sun had risen long ago), so I decided I'd speak the next year.
At the end, Griff, who had been deemed the Emperor of Passionfruit the year before, made everyone lie on their backs and put their hands up to the sky. We had to put some of our best CTY memories into the sky. And as he talked about it, I had been crying before, but I started to really really sob. That was the first time it hit me: we had to go. And I could come back next year, but some of these people couldn't. And I loved these people, they were my brothers and sisters, and it wasn't fair. I love CTY. I love them all, and I love the passionfruit.
We had classes from 9:00-11:00, but basically everyone was out on the quad signing memory books and talking and laughing and crying. We speculated for a while about what would happen when the glowstick came out the other end. You think it'll glow purple still?
I'm walking back to the dorm at 11 to go pack (this is our ONLY packing time, don't ask me why) and Mom and Dad are walking towards me. Whoops. So they went and packed for me. I didn't mind. Fifteen minutes. Then they went and hung out and had their student meeting and I wrote on the signs on the wall. Karel had made a sign for each persun in our hall and we all had to go write about the persun, not just "you're awesome love ya" but real things that you never had the chance/guts to say. It was a lovely idea but not so good in practice. She started putting two up a day the week before but not everyone wrote on them so she didn't change every day and mine ended up being put up the day before, so all everyone wrote was "see your memory book" and I didn't even get anything from Rosie. Oh well. I wrote on everyone's, so that made me happy. Closing ceremonies were at one. I started to cry really badly when Griff and Shira sang "Leaving On A Jet Plane." I always cried during that song when I was little, and this time it was just even sadder. Ceremonies were over at 2:20 and my group of friends stayed there for five minutes weeping and hugging each other and it was so sad, we have so many nevermores. It was like something Griff had said during passionfruit, "it's like my home is being ripped away from me at the age of sixteen." So, so true. I'm going to remember that next year when I'm a nevermore, because I HAVE to go back. I promised too many people. I promised the people who can't come back, Rachel and Emily and Rob and Anthony and Louisa, that I'll come back. I even promised the people who could come back and were going to try to coordinate second session next year, Pippa and Matt and Hannah and Rosie and Michelle. Oh, God, I don't know what I'm going to do without these people. I've been on AIM constantly and email constantly.
I think if there had been another week things would have gotten even BETTER. I mean, there was definitely some hall tension, especially with Taube, so maybe that would have improved. Maybe Sarah and Dakota would have been less homesick. There are so many maybe's. The first few days were awkward because Pippa, Emily, Hannah, and Rachel had been there before and all had their own groups of friends who they sat with at meals. In fact, meals were usually awkward, even breaks could be awkward, but at least I could always hang out with Dakota, so it was just soooo much better than the year before.
Back to the present: for some bizarre reason, I woke up at 5:30, and it's now 7:30, and Mom wants me to get dressed and have breakfast and then she'll take Kelsey and I to the mall to go get a new bathing suit. There's more to say, but it'll happen later. Expect an entry about the ethics class, because I have a lot to say about that too, but perhaps not today; I have over 100 pages to type for Dr. Joan. She did, however, pay me $30. OH AND ONE LAST ANNOUNCEMENT...
EVERYONE...
"THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING" COMES OUT ON VIDEO AND DVD TODAYYYYYYYY!
YAYYYYYYYY!
I pre-ordered it months ago for Kelsey's birthday, and I really really hope it comes today, but I don't think it will, because I also ordered a book about "Rent" and that'll probably slow down the order. But still... EVERYONE GO BUY IT, RIGHT NOW!
*Jessica*
