Yoooooooo. ISAS rocked.
Day 1: Wednesday
Our journey begins way-too-early Wednesday morning. I turned in my revised draft for my absolutely rockin’ Huck Finn paper (I’m proud of myself — go me), and after a great deal of flailing about, we left at about 8 AM. I got to sit next to Chungy, which was nifty. Then next to us were Sleeny (yes, her name is Marcelina, but I’ve started to call her Sleeny Todd and it’s gotten to be difficult to call her anything else) and Eunice. Yayfun! The total length of the bus ride (minus the rest-stops for the driver and our dinner) was nearly 10 1/2 hours — we made great time! I knitted nearly the entire time, as there’s nothing better to do when watching movies. While scarves are mindless and fun, I really want to learn how to make something else. Sleeny had this awesome knitted hat, which didn’t look that difficult to make. It looks a bit like a tea cosy. ::hearts Sleeny’s hat:: Sometime soon, I’m going to get some new yarn stuff at MJDesigns, steal her hat to use as a reference, and make one for myself. Far too cute. Sleeny also has a backpack shaped like a cow (his name is “Thomas”, after a bass player) and an awesome wallet made out of duct tape, mailing tape, and a Van Gogh calendar. Far too nifty. Anyway, the movies were “Spaceballs” (still funny after the 15 trillionth time), “Keeping the Faith” (hilarious — I had never seen it and I wasn’t sure if I’d like it), and some other movie I don’t remember. It’ll come to me eventually. [Later: It was “Good Will Hunting”]
Much was accomplished after we arrived. We watched “6 Feet Under” because Marcelina’s brother was in the episode. Yayfun! It was hilarious to watch Chungy and Rachel squirm whenever the gay couple expressed affection. I can’t remember what else we did that evening, so let’s go to…
Day 2: Thursday
The next morning, I went with the Digital Imaging people to hang my art. I got such an ego trip off of all the people that stopped to stare. I was the only person I saw at the festival with CG images (there were a few absolutely phenomenal CGIs, though. ::drools::), so Vimes attracted attention. Of course, I didn’t realize until later that people were actually more interested in my September 11th tribute — something I actually considered not bringing. Out of all of the comments Hockaday digital artists received (something like 13), all but 4 had to do with the 9-11 image. Good grief. Looking through them all with Stephanie (another of the digital artists) was embarrassing. I got to be rather good friends with one of the early admirers. His name was Cory, but I can’t remember his surname or school. He had some rather awesome paintings, I later saw. Go him. He led me to realize that all semi-skinny guys with medium-long, light hair remind me vuagely of Riff from Sluggy Freelance. God help us all.
Anyway, while putting up my work, I was confronted by a girl named Andrea (accent on the 2nd syllable, I learned), who wanted to know if Priscilla was around. Yes, I said; in fact she was. It turns out that this was Liz’s friend (Liz the RMLer, for those with short memories). Liz herself was just around the corner, helping some of the other Duchesne (say “doo-SHEN”) girls put up their art. Yayfun!
I attended some nifty workshops on college portfolio preparation, martial arts, and charcoal drawing (the knees of my jeans are still black) later that day. Chungy wasn’t feeling too well, so I stayed with her in the common room, rereading “Good Omens”, then more of “American Gods”. I also got to check out the 2D and 3D art galleries. Some of the art there was unbelieveable. I especially remember this stained glass portrait of a girl in various shades of blue — absolutely gorgeous.
Day 3: Friday
The next morning, I went to see Liz and Andrea perform in the Duchesne “scenes and monologues” thing, which was highly entertaining. Hilarious stuff, yo. Afterwards, while I was waiting to congratulate them, I heard a group of people singing snippets from “How to Succeed”. I had seen on a flier the day before that a school was going to put on H2$, so I knew I had to see it. Hurrah!
I went back to the 2D gallery to look at more art, which I gaped at again until it was time for my critique. The critiquer was awesome. I was in a peppy mood, so the symbolic artistic content rubbish was much easier to invent on the spot. We spent about 40 minutes talking about my 5 images, which was quite strange, considering that there were 5 students for the 1-hour period. Unfortunately, Fumiko couldn’t come, Izabella’s images somehow didn’t get packed, and Katherine disappeared at the last minute. Just me and Stephanie. Nifty! Then it was lunch, then I went off to prepare for “The Pajama Game”.
“Pajama Game” was generally painless. The main hitch was the lack of backstage changing space. The area alloted for costume changes was easily visible from the wings of the audience. Yeep. I generally hid behind the costume racks.
Afterwards, I snuck in to a songfest of stuff from “Jekyll and Hyde”, “The Scarlet Pimpernell”, and “Godspell”. That school was fabulous — I’m so jealous that they do so many musicals. Too much talent. Grrr. When that ended, I ran across campus to try to get into “Spoon River Anthology”, which was done at Jesuit a few years ago and really had me curious, but I was too late. They had alreay closed the doors. I waited in the common room until it was time to head back across campus to see “How to Succeed”. In line, I met a fabulous group of guys and girls from St. Stephens, a school in Austin. They had done H2$ last year, as well. We hit it off almost immediately when we realized this common bond. My best friend from the pack, Grace, had played Rosemary. We reminisced about how much we loved the musical; I’d have to say it’s one of my all-time favourites. Currently battling out for #1. Unfortunatley, the school’s performance was less than stellar. Far less than stellar. Painful, in fact. All the actors except Hedy, Smitty, and occasionally Rosemary seemed like they were reading a grocery list. There was no chemistry and no character. Every joke was lost. Grace and I kept flinching at every destroyed scene. Gah. The one really amusing aspect of the show is that the guy who played Finch beared an uncanny resemblance to an older version of the kid in that MST3K classic “Final Sacrifice”. The “Rosdower” episode. ::snickets:: I want to rewatch my video of the Jesuit production to remind myself of how phenomenally spectacular it was (no, I’m not modest, what gave you that idea?), but I reminded myself bitterly that my mom only taped the scenes I was in, plus the Act I Finale and “Gotta Stop That Man/I Believe In You”. Meh. She was unaware that this camera actually works properly and doesn’t run out of battery every 5 minutes like our old one.
Anyway, I went to dinner with Grace, who had challenged herself to meet and converse with as many boys as possible. I kept snicketing whenever she waved down more guys to sit at our table. Utter hilarity. After that, I went back to the 2D gallery for one last walkaround, then to the common room. I found out that Chungy had gotten worse and had been taken back to the hotel room to sleep. Especially nasty case of the flu, we suspect. Poor girl. ::hugs Chungy:: As I finished rereading “Good Omens”, Marcelina and I got to talking about various aspects of the book and picking out which bits were mainly written by Pterry or Neil. Eunice overheard us. I found out that she was also a big Terry Pratchett fan, to my utter joy. She had been highly entertained by my Vimes picture in the show. Go Vimes. After a while, I went to take down everyone’s digital images, then returned to hang out with Sleeny and Eunice. We used Mariam’s camera to take random pictures of Marcelina and Eunice slaying vampires, Eunice attacking the camera, and Marcelina curled up in a ball in a corner with Thomas, her cow backpack. I can’t wait until Mariam gets them developed!
Later, Cory showed up in search of Maria and Allie. They weren’t there, so instead, he, Sleeny, Eunice, and I had a highly amusing conversation about topics such as the amoralistic, social-downfall aspects of characters in “Winnie the Pooh”. I wish I’d gotten his email address. Anyway, Marcelina, Cory, and I went off to the dance thing in search of Maria and Allie, where we crazy danced and challenged ourselves to plough through the huge mass of bodies at the longest area, through the most dense center. We succeeded. Go us. We found Maria, who had brought glowsticks. We did that groovy wrist-dancing thing with the glowsticks, which was certainly interesting. I was fairly good, for someone who had never tried before. Eventually, we returned to the common room, then went back to the hotel. Sleep.
Day 4: Saturday
Chungy was in a sad state, so Dr. Magee (the Upper School Headmistress) let her fly home. The rest of us were confined to the bus. Again, I knitted as we watched “Zoolander” (absolute hilarity! I loved it!), the first bit of “Billy Madison”, and “Josie and the Pussycats”. Again, there was another movie on the list that I couldn’t remember. Again, it will come to me eventually. And now I’m home.
So that’s my story. I’m going to sleep.