sooooooooo the convention. very interesting. VERY fun...there were nine of us Chrissy, Janice, Tiffany, Qiao, me, Charlie, Jeffery, Benny and Kyle. So getting there was good.

Wednesday July 16, 2003
we all met in the morning at Oakland Airport at 6:00AM and most of my friends were already there, of course Tiffany as always was running a little bit late and got there at 6:20. The line for check in was EXTREMELY long. going on a wednesday morning is very popular I guess. So we eventually got to the front and everything went smoothly, boarding passes and everything. Except for Kyle at the security check point, because he got pulled to the side because aparently he's got "heavy metals" in his shoes LoL and he got re checked again. We were so loud on the flight..well most of them were...Chrissy and Janice, when they get going they really are loud, but most of us were all seriously hyped up. Jeff sat at the window, I sat in the middle and Kyle sat at the end, and then benny, tiffany and charlie sat in a row and then Chrissy, janice and Qiao sat in a different row. I can't remember any specific things now that happened, probably just a bunch of random/funny/odd/just plain weird things happened. We had to transfer planes in Denver, and I guess we thought we had more time then we did, we went to mcdonalds and ate lunch, it took some people longer than others since i think they were having a problem with a lack of change but any ways it took about 20 minutes and then Tiffany was like okay we have to go now, and we were like okay just a little bit longer, we all eventually got up and left and about 3/4 of the way there, she hears and the intercom calling all passengers must be boarded on the plane leaving for Kansas City now. I didn't notice it, but she was like oh my goodness i think that's our plane, so she and I made a run for it and thankfully sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo thankfully we just caught the guy, and he was a bit rude saying "where have you been" and stuff, and we had to explain that someone had a broken leg, they gave some of our seats away, but we all got on the plane together. That was a bit scary since it was only two minutes before the plane was going to take off and if we had missed our plane it would have just been a big mess. On that plane i don't remember much either...Once we got to the airport, and got our luggage, Tiffany called for a shuttle to pick us up and since a lot of people were coming that day to go to the convention, there happened to be a van already there going to the Adam's Mark Hotel and they had three free seats, so Jeffery went because of his broken leg and it would be easier than just having him wait, Tiffany went because she had everything to check-in and benny went because of tiffany. That left, Charlie, Chrissy, Janice, Kyle, Qiao and me. Kansas City airport is EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEMELY small and there wasn't much to see so we just huge out at the luggage carousal we were discussing what we were wearing for the formal dinner and talking about the shoes we had, i told Qiao that i had a skirt, black open toed sandals, and then charlie and janice were talking and charlie said he had high-heel boots, and we all looked at him really funny and then he said they were high-heeled boots, (honestly, not that much better) and so he opened his suit case to show us what he was talking about and then it happened...he opened the suit case and laying on top were the boots. they were the funniest things i've seen in a loooooong time I just started cracking up, I'm still not sure what about them were so funny, but I just was cracking UP! and I could never picture Charlie wearing them. I just crack up thinking about it! That was just the beginning of the jokes, I think that'll make me laugh for a long time to come :D Eventually the shuttle came and on the ride there, I didn't notice much...a LOT of flat land, highways...a couple of corn fields, i didn't say much during the ride just kind of absorbed everything up. When we got to the Adams Mark Hotel it was nice, there were revolving doors and that was a bit fun for all of us. The first thing waiting outside, we noticed was the heat BOY WAS IT HUMID! Anyways we got up to our rooms, standard hotel rooms, two queens, tv, coffee maker, closet, bathroom, iron/board. no biggie. Us girls were on the fourth floor (402) and the boys were on the third floor (324) the numbers never really mattered, unles we were calling I think most of spent equal time in both of them. By the time we got in and registered, it was dinner time, there was buffet dinner, Salad (standard for every night) pizza, bread sticks and dessert. The drinks as i eventually found out were always the same lemonaide, iced tea, and water (in the mornings milk and orange juice too) That night we had our first general session and the Internationl club president talked for a bit and they also had an inspirational speaker, who was very inspirational and very active, two things necessary for a good speaker, if the speaker's boring well it's just pure torture and horrible. After that ended, we didn't feel like going to the game show which was after so we decided it was time for a dip in the outside pool, it was so muggy outside, but the pool was quite benificial in cooling us off, I think everyone went except for Jeff because of the cast, Also Kate came who at the time I didn't know all that well, only that she was from Homestead high school from the district meetings. We had a bunch of fun, just messing around until the pool closed and we all had to go up stairs. I'm so glad that the girls are great, there wasn't any fighting and we all took turns taking showers, and there was no arguments. After we all showered, the guys came to our room (i think it was our room) anyways we hung out in one of the rooms until it was about midnight since it was curfew then they left to go their room and sleep etc. so we brushed our teeth and everything. and we were all laying in the dark, whenever you have a group of girls, there will be discussion LoL which did happen for about 25 30 minutes, and then it all started to die down, and then Tiffany suddenly came out with, i wonder what guys do? if they talk like we were talking and stuff, and i said something like yeah do they have "male bonding sessions" ? LoL as a joke, and then she asked "hm...i wonder who's sleeping with who?" and none of us knew, and we were guessing how things would have gone and stuff, by this time i think it was about 1AM and then someone said let's call to find out! so i was right next to the phone and i asked the two questions, I don't think charlie knew how to answer the "male bonding" one, but I guessed who was sleeping with who and they were all still up and then when i was guessing all the other girls were interested and i had seen another phone on the desk earlier and I wondered if we could put it on speaker phone. It took us a bit to understand how that worked (we figured it out, the brown phone had to be hung up so the speaker phone would work) we got that going and told the boys how to use it too and so we were talking to them about stupid stuff and and Kyle, being kyle was making all these horrible side comments that he knew we could all hear from the phone, stuff for example like "jeff, get your pants back on" and things like that. every once in awhile it go quiet and we'd have to go hello? qiao wanted to sleep so all of us were crowding around the phone talking into it whispering kind of so that we wouldn't wake her up, eventually we got tired of talking on the phone so we just asked if they wanted to come over and benny and charlie did but jeff was sleeping and kyle didn't want to. The only thing was that it was WAY after curfew so if they got caught they would be in a lot of trouble, but they got to our room fine, and Tiffany and Benny were on one bed, qiao had a bed by herself, and Chrissy, Janice, Charlie and myself were all talking on the floor. Mostly random stuff, OH and on the phone there was this "plucking" sound that none of the girls could figure out so when benny and charlie came over they brought over this empty tube of choco-gummies and was pulling the top off. So we were just on the floor talking and i think Charlie said something obscene, mean or wrong or something LoL and so someone (it might have been me) hit him with the empty tube and it made this really weird sound, it didn't sound like it normally did. so we spent a lot of the time hitting charlie on the head trying to see where it made the different sounds LoL and then Qiao eventually woke up and we got to talking about her and kyle and their situation. she finally admitted that she liked him (which took a lot of redundancy and circuity since she would constantly say something like i don't know until he does something she didn't understand that he wouldn't do anything until he knew. it was a dumb cycle, she talked about her insecurities and things. at least we told her that he's probably scared as heck too, although i'm not sure she understood. that went on until chrissy was out cold and it was just me qiao, janice and charlie left, so we talked until it was about 3:00AM or a little past and then went to sleep, janice slept next to qiao and charlie slept next to me and i slept by chrissy head.

Tuesday July 17, 2003
So no one would notice them, Charlie and Benny left around 6:00AM I think and we started to get a bit ready too. Not so bad... we went down to breakfast where there was eggs, bacon, sausage, etc. and then cereal, fresh fruit and muffins. I opted for the cereal since the other stuff would make me hurl. so we sat and ate breakfast and then we arranged for the free hotel shuttle to drop us off downtown so we could shop around. But on the elevator ride after breakfast the elevator was pretty packed and a shorter kid looks at kyle and says "dude you're like yao ming!" and then put his sunglasses and tried to look cool, it was hard not to laugh, but in my head it too a bit to figure out that he said "yao ming" until it hit me and i started to crack up and I told Kyle I forget if he was a enthusiastic about it or not, but everyone else thought it was funny. So that's where we got Kyle's nickname Yao, and I forget who started calling Jeff "Gimpy" it might have been me, or maybe chrissy, anyways that was Jeff's nickname, I used them both quite frequently. The phrase of the trip was "come on gimpy" :D ... since almost everyone else was going to the amusement park (we didn't go because we were tight on money and we needed to give up everything extra) We really got ot know Kate that day because she came with us too since she didn't buy a ticket either. So we decided to go to the Crown Plaza where there were a couple of shops, and there were some cool stores, such as the crayola store, with a bunch of crayola art supplies and crayon facts. That was fun shop and we hung out there for a bit, and there was another toy store where there were puppets, we were having so much fun with those the two i remember most was kyle and this police officer puppet. Kyle did this deep voice and it was just hilarious, it's just sad that tiffany didn't bring her camara :'( and then benny took this camel puppet which looked like Joe Camel from the cigarette commercials and was like this is what happens when you're on drugs, and made the camel twitch and stuff, it was just really funny! We had a fun time just wandering around and hanging out. I bought some more glass figurines to add to my collection :) We took pictures of all the fountains, and there are quite a few, very pretty. When we got back we took a dip in the pool and discovered charlie had a water proof bag in his swim trunks and so we filled it with water and since it kind of floated, we played a bit of monkey in the middle with it. Mental note: if you play monkey in the middle with Kyle, don't throw the bag over, throw it to the side like you're skipping stones. And so we cleaned up and then went to Denny's. Man i can't remember the last time I was there. I was flipping through the menu, and it didn't take me too long to decide what to get, (Ranch and BBQ chicken salad), but the rest of them took a bit, and most settled on Chicken Fried steak. Kyle is a drinking machine, he had almost four cups of Cola! I swear that boy's obscessed with Cola (he's gonna give himself an ulcer) and tiffany got pretty good at shooting ice out of her mouth into the glass infront of her LoL random party trick :) I had some coupons for Denny's so I got my dinner free and we shared one dessert. We decided on getting a brownie with ice cream on top. Tiffany had her video camara with her and I'm sure she's got this funny shot of all of our spoons ready to dig in on it :) good fun, good fun. The driver had told us that there was a supermarket or WalMart down the road, and so some people were going to get some snacks, but most of us had take-out boxes and that was useless for us to take to there, so it was decided that one guy and one girl should go to take the food back, Kyle volunteered so the guys were set and then none of the girls wanted to go back, so i just volunteered and then Jeff came with us too so that he wouldn't have to walk all the way over there. As we went walked back i think we talked about random stuff, again i don't remember but i'm sure it was funny. Benny or Tiffany i'm not sure, but they asked where the WalMart was since the driver said that the supermarket and walmart were down by the light and make a turn, but that wasn't so exact, so they got more directions. We all figured it was about 10, 15 minutes walking distance, but it was actually 10-15 minutes driving distance, because just on a whim i asked the front desk where the walmart was, and they told us, it wasn't "impossible" to walk there, but it was a REALLY REALLY REALLY long walk. But the decided to come back anyways since the found out that the walmart closed at 8 and it was 8:40 at the time. Again, enter random talking (we do that a lot) and then midnight came around, so the girls decided to leave since we were crashing the boys room and then the boys were like we might come over tonight, but later they decided that they wanted to sleep, and i think we wanted to also. So that was the only night out of the four we got about 8 hours of sleep

Friday July 18, 2003
That morning I guess we forgot to set the alarm and at about 8:40, Qiaoma says hey you guys should wake up, it's 8:40 and so we were SO rushing that morning we were too late for breakfast, but since the guys get ready faster and Benny finds food an extremely good incentive, he got ready earlier and ran down for some of the last part of breakfast, he snagged some bacon muffins, and took them up to the room for later munching. So Qiao and I went to the workshop about being first time Officers of the club and that was the whole morning, for us. I liked that workshop since the woman running it wasn't boring at all and i learned a lot from her. Al

I think i dwell on things too much. Not conciously i think...but today for instance there was a misunderstanding and i had no ride to great america (which my mom eventually drove me) and when i got there i mentioned it, but i was quite upset at that point that no one thought to call anyone else to tell someone to wait for me...but i think i mentioned it a couple of other times. not that i was still upset or anything, I'm not sure why i did it, in the end it was all find because i got there and met up with them, they were even waiting at the front gate so i didn't have to go looking everywhere for everyone...but maybe i still felt a bit bitter? even though i didn't think so....eh psychology hurts my head. oh well that was just a random thought.........
the day well once i got there was pretty fun....justin is very funny although people are extrememly indecisive...it's horrible. I"m trying to suggest things but all the lines are too long or something else....but the rest of the day at the park was fun :) Tiffany's a psycho driver! :D LoL kyle is too...and he's obscene extremely obscene. it was horrible! lol i guess he's quiet most of the time, but when he's quiet it just stores and stores and stores, until when he get a chance he'll make any obscene comment possible! we were in line for a water ride and charlie said something about having elisa shield the water away from him and then it went elisa was going on top of charlie and elisa was wet and it just went on from there. it was one of the most obscene line waits i have ever been in LoL!!! friggin hilarious! so was the car ride to TK noodles...but that's a bit of a different story. we had 10 people in the morning and so we decided to split five and five and so it was pretty much split the rest of the day until about 3 when we met up again, and then we group into random groups who ever wanted to go where ever. but victor wanted to go to ghengas kong for dinner and some of heard it wasn't that good and it was more expensive than tk noodles....so most of us decided to go there....and i think victor wanted his birthday dinner with everyone there and was kind of upset...oops...but i think he enjoyed his gifts lol, everyone got the idea that he likes cars...he got a car model, an RC car and a 2 fast 2 furious poster.