The LAST Summer in Review

Well, considering that my last summer has probably been the most event-filled and "life-changing" summer I've ever had, I believe that I should devote some time for the background tale.

* Ideally, you would know a bit more about me before you read this, but instead I'll let you think what you want. Who knows, you may even turn out to be right.

My last year of high school, at Broad Run no less, had just ended, and thus it was obviously summer. Graduation, Project Graduation, a few days off, trip to Europe, more time off, mebbe even a job somewhere. That was basically the summer I was expecting on the last day of school. Boy was I wrong... or mostly misinformed.

Well, for the most part, graduation was just as I expected it to be. We had our little (but not really... it lasted three hours) "graduation practice" the day before actual graduation so we would be ready for it. Not hard at all, but there was one good reason to go. Well, two actually, one being that we couldn't walk without having gone, and two being that we got our yearbooks. Not exactly the best thing ever--the yearbook that is--but it's something to just remember Broad Run with. After the summer, I've moved on so much that it's hard to recall having attended high school at all ^^;

Now Project Graduation was more fun than I thought it'd be. Oooh, that and we got the "comfy chair" for our dorm! Man, it was fun. The night was full of random games, gambling, scary beauty contests, more gambling, and sleep deprivation (ooh, fun)! The random games included big glove boxing (yes... like sock 'em boppers or whatever they were called), mechanical bull riding (which I did awesome at!), and food! Erm, well I know that food isn't really a game, but it was good, and free which is something you can never deny. The gambling was awesome too. It's how we ended up getting the comfy chair in the first place. Basically everyone got a bunch of fake money to go cash in for chips to play with at the fake casino. With enough fake money, you could go to the gym and get awesome prizes like a TV, some CDs, and... *drum roll* a comfy chair!!! That's what we went for and, after a lot of cheating and stealing of people's money, we actually had enough Monopoly money to buy it (ok, it wasn't Monopoly money, but it was fake and colorful, like the rest of the world's currency*. I mean, what else am I supposed to call it).

After they closed down the gambling, which was around the time that everybody was ridiculously tired, they herded those who stayed the night into the gym. This must have been the worst part of the entire night--though it was disturbingly funny. Apparently the people running the entire thing had gotten some of the those there to take part in a contest of sorts... a beauty contest. Thing is, like always, there was a spin to it. No girls. Even worse was that we were forced to watch a bunch of guys dressed up like girls try to win a beauty pageant. Quite a painful moment, but at least it only lasted half an hour or so and then we got to go home and rest our eyes.

Once that crazy night ended, I had a few days until I left for Europe. Now to keep things somewhat short, I'm going to write a separate entry for it, but I will mention that it was awesome and so worth going to. Oh, interesting story I can tell here. In order to go on the trip you had to have been invited by the two teachers who were acting as chaperones. I did not know either and had never had either as a teacher. But, I did have a lot of friends who were going--including Sahil, Kish, John, Martin, etc.--so I wanted to go obviously. To do so I pulled the whole "friend of many good people going whom the teachers liked" card and asked if I could go along. It all ended well and, of course, I found myself on that Lufthansa flight over to Frankfurt. Fun times ^_^

After Europe, and many many new friends later ^^, on the flight back, I was smart enough to get a list of people's contact information. At the time there was one main reason that I was doing this--one person really, but it's all old news--however, things turned out to be very good for me when I did this. To sum it up, I got to plan a good amount of the small "reunions" that we had once we were back home. All, or most of us really, were good friends and so we wanted to meet up again to hang out and have fun times like we did in Europe. Thus we did.

Some weeks passed--mostly uneventful except for those night drives and reunions--and I had orientation down here at Tech. It was fun and I was so excited during that time until I found out that I was being forced to go to Puerto Rico with my family two weeks later. Now that threw me off balance. I had many things in the process of being planned--not to mention the large amount of fun we, the Europe group, had been having. After that, for the tumultuous time that passed, I was in a very pouty mood. However, that was soon to pass and be replaced by the well-known--at least in today's day and age--mood known as "emo." No, I didn't get a new haircut or cut myself or anything characteristically emo. I was just really really down, for reasons my friends know, though even that didn't last long. Actually, instead of being emo about things, I decided to make the best of the situation which I had been thrown into.

How did I pull it off? Well, I'd say a few days before we left, I decided to ask one of my friends in PR for her number. Long story of how I met her (actually, never in person, I just knew her through my godfather's son, who just so happens to be a good friend of mine), but basically I thought it was time that the two of us met (see, we'd been friends online for a while and had wanted to meet in person, but every time I went to PR with my family before that time she was off on vacation). (Wow, that somewhat easily and painlessly just explained the whole situation) So, I may not have been able to stay at home and enjoy the week with my friends, but instead I traded that for meeting and making new friends. And, it worked out as I will recount when I get to it in my telling of my time in PR.

When we finally returned from Puerto Rico I was in a ridiculously blissful mood. Oddly enough, I had pulled a complete 180 in a little over a week. This was good. For the rest of the summer, the precious couple of weeks left, I more or less got to continue what I had been doing before leaving: hanging with friends, reunions, and more night drives (a lot more). Apparently, while I was gone, James and Kish had gone on drives more or less every single night. Also one day, the two of them, Vince, Cathryn (Vince's girlfriend), and Ted had all gone camping--hehe, that always makes me think of You, Me, and Dupree. Well obviously this made me want to go, so before I left for Tech there were three very important things left to do:

1. Go camping.
2. Plan one big "summer's over" Europe reunion.
3. ... uh, pack >.<;

Camping's gonna get it's own post, so not much to say on that right now. Packing and the reunion, while fun--I mean the reunion--were mostly uneventful. Other than the fact that the last Europe get-together was a real success, there truly is little to say about it. The most noteworthy part about it was seeing how so many things had changed in such a short span of time (the few weeks of summer) for me and my friends--both old and new. Soooo, in summary: Kish drives like a maniac after so many night drives, James is a hermit who cries during chick flicks, Sahil's still Indian, John has a girlfriend, and I have more friends than I ever thought I would and had the best time of my life this past summer. Sa-weet.

Ending on that note I shall say goodnight to you all. This post has taken me forever long to type, but I think it was worth it (especially since now I have like three or four other spin-off posts to get to work on). Expect more updates in the near future!

* God damn, the intraweb is full of so many idiots that I am forced to do this. It's not that I have gotten complaints, or because of the chance that I will get any, but just to prove that I am not one of those ignorant bloggers. This is what we call--in the business... which, coincidentally, I do not belong to--humor. Not good humor, but just something that makes me chuckle lightly at 4 AM.