Life

Okay... so there are many parts to this, so forgive the randomness and the length. I think I'll organize by tale and not time.
It took two days to drive up there, and we were sleeping some of the time under seats on the bus, and randomly burst into songs such as "dancing queen," "don't stop believing," "thriller," and Disney Mulan's "be a man." I saw mountains. I've never seen mountains. They were exciting.
We played truth or dare on the back of the bus, and I was dared to hear Titus out for 2 minutes. So I timed it on his phone, while recording. And he asked me out. FOR TWO-AND-A-HALF MINUTES!
Aha. Ha ha. Ha. HA!!! Yeah, right. SO I told him I'd think about it, then came up with a nice way of saying it, and declined.
When we got there, Kara and I were roomed together. She was about to leave her key in the room, but instead of going back for it, we decided "hey. I have my key, so what's the issue?"
Well the issue was that somebody wasn't paying attention, and gave me the key to room 346 as opposed to 246. FAIL!!
SO we had to go to the information center, got the right key, and then got lost all over campus until 11:00 at night (so for about an hour and a half). Then when we got to the dorms, (finally!) and aren't allowed to shower that night because of Curfew.
Monday was a lot of registering things, and even #1 of northern madness. I will go through all of the northern madness events now.
1. as I was leaving my dorm, an Ohioan informed me that it was raining. I wen outside ot a bare mist, and thought "Florida is like this all the time-- only we're so hot that the pleasant, tiny droplets evaporate before touching your skin, and it gets muggy and humid, and you can't go outside without having gills to breathe."
2. I got beans and rice from the cafeteria. The beans came on the side of the rice. Not on top.
3. I asked for sweet tea, and was given stump water, and 8 packets of sugar.
That night we decided to skip the scheduled dance, and practice for Ultimate Frisbee the next day, so we had our own little party with lots of soda, and energy drinks, and snacks. On the way to Fellowship, we chanted and cheered for florida, and then some Georgia kids said they were better than us, so we cheered louder.
Tuesday was testing, assemblies, Colloquia, and Ultimate Frisbee. We totally dominated. I ended up getting hurt, but played anyway-- it looks worse than it feels...
Wednesday was working the bazaar, which involved Gladiatorial combat. Some kids from Texas decided that the bazaar was boring, so they utilized the grassy area in the middle of the bazaar for combat; elected one of them emperor, got out two foam swords, and named their gladiator. A champion rose and for 5 rounds none could overtake him. No one would fight this Champion, and so the games were about to close. This is where I threw my hat at my friend Will, and stepped into the arena.
"I shall fight." I said with firm assuredness.
The emperor's cronies laughed. "Blasphemy! Women cannot fight in the Coliseum!"
"That's nice, Commodus--" his cronies gasped at the reference, "this is the bazaar. Give me a sword."
The emperor did not budge, but the Champion relaxed, and broke character, "Dude, let her fight."
He was a sweet kid-- shame I had to beat him.
And everyone else for the next eight rounds.
Then I was killed. And the guy who killed me, Sam, could not be killed. Not by the Chinese kid who was "The Asian Tiger." Not by Will, who had taken my hat. And not like the dozens of competitors who tried him.
So the emperor took up a sword.
"Blasphemy!" I shouted from the sidelines, "An emperor cannot fight in the Coliseum!"
"As much as a woman cannot?" he grinned.
And so he fought. And was losing. And his cronies joined in bringing the battle to three on one, but our recently dubbed "Sparticus" could not be seized. A few other girls and I swooned pretendedly from the sidelines-- that was funny. He went on to kill the emperor, and the gladiatorial combat was finished.
I then attended competitive certamen, and explored a basement. The two people I carried F-L-O-R-I-D-A signs with were Sarah and Julianne, and they had planned to go basement spelunking. I had the same plans, and hadn't yet made the time. So-- we've-never-seen-a-basement-before Florida Girls-- go down the extra flight of stairs. We saw an unbrella in a basement, and got into a lot of stuff we maybe weren't supposed to. Storage closets yeilded Sorority stuff from the 1940's-- scrapbooks, party supplies, Sorority books... and a box of notecards. On each notecard was a name of a professor at the university, and on the back of each was thoughts written out in perfect script about them. Some were nice like "great tests" "Easy A" "good note-giver." Others were marked with "Worst teacher ever" "Avoid class at all costs" and the occasional profanity.
Thursday was project viewing, open certamen, and the eventual That's Entertainment.
Before and throughout Nationals, James (whom I mentioned in my last blog before departure) became increasingly stalkerish and weird. I would come to Bradford trembling after an encounter with James, and he would always know exactly what to do to silence the quivering, and steady the beat of my heart. He took it upon himself to escort me to assemblies and the like, and to make sure I had someone to walk with whenever he couldn't. My safety became his biggest concern.
We gathered outside of the huge assembly hall, over 600 latin students from across the nation, and not even the full group of attendees to convention. 30 minutes after the house was supposed to open, we began to riot-- always in small groups. Then a girl closeby me yelled out above everyone "ARE YOU READY KIDS?!" To which over 600 voices responded "AYE, AYE, CAPTAIN!!" And the entire congregation launched into the Spongebob Squatepants theme sone. It turned out that there was a flaw in Bradford's keeping of me, and for once, I found myself alone. I caught up with one of my friends from my school, Will. It was Will who first spotted James waiting for me on the outskirts of the milling crowd-- all my friends had learned to recognize him for the cause of careful avoidance. As we neared, Will snatched my shoes from my hand (because there was no way I was wearing the heels for a 1 1/2 mile walk from the dorms to the assembly hall) and took off running. I can easily outrun him, and followed him onto a large, grassy feild beside the hall. Flanking him carefully I asked, "What are you doing?" to which he responded "Saving your ***." Afterwards I played Frisbee with random people-- each from a different state in the magnificent feild. But he still waited. As I tried to slip quietly through the crowd I was, of course, noticed. I had not yet spotted a face I could recognize, and Will had left me to the protection of the frisbee players. But I was not alone.
He tried to "reason" with me, as warped as his reason had become. Every time I pulled away he grabbed my arm-- hard. I pleaded with him to let me go-- "Please, James, you're hurting me." "Please, James, stop."-- after all my eloquent reasoning had failed. Eventually I was able to insert myself into a group of North Dakotans who were going into the crowd. By then I had spotted Bradford, and (thanking every deity I could name that he was tall and decided to wear a red shirt) made my was over to him. I stood close to him, trying to regain myself, when James appeared within our ranks. I edged a little closer to Bradford and the move didn't go unnoticed by either of them. For his part, Bradford took me, and placed himself between James and I, with a gentle smile in my direction, and a challenging gaze in James'. That is what I mean by gentle and also masculine. Still upset, I whispered to Brad "Sit with me." Understanding danced behind his eyes, and he nodded so slightly only the two of us would notice the exchange. When the doors finally opened, he gently took ahold of my wrist (grabbing my arm was an action both of the men took, but you can see the difference of the meaning of it from person to person) and went dashing inside. As we peeled to the left, and James-- trying to tail us, but failing miserably-- peeled to the right, James yelled at me "You ruined my life, I hope you're happy." Bradford went jumping over rows of chairs (after deciding on a section, he let me loose to do all this) to get to the row he wanted. There were chaperones and college Latin students all around the section, and there was no way James could get to the spot. After we finally sat, he waited patiently, watching my chest shakily rise and fall, allowing me to tremble-- somehow he knew I was beyond words and comprehensible thought. Once I finally opened my eyes and looked into his face I saw him as more than just protection and a friend. And he asked what happened.
He was willing (okay, understatement. He was excited) about going and kicking James' ***. But he listened to me, when I gently told him no. He didn't even make me repeat it. We watched the talent show together, and (due to our mutual musical inclination) we were able to make intelligent commentary, and really enjoyed each other's company. Afterwards, he walked me back to my dorm, ignoring the fact that it would make him late for curfew. I thanked him-- as much as I didn't want to be in trouble, I didn't want to be alone at night after the show of James' obvious insanity.
I went to bed and the next day dawned.