Update #1
Three weeks ago I was…
At work. Once again I’m in charge of National Food Safety Education Month. Sounds fun, but when your boss limits your creativity it’s just another job. This year I hooked up with South Bay YMCAs to create food safety outreaches at the most foodborne illness area in the county. At least I got my way with concentrating on this area instead of having to look for other programs to infiltrate. I hope the kids appreciate it, although I feel like I’m half ass’ing it because I’m just not into it as in year’s past…
Two weeks ago I was…
At ICON. One of the best (and longest) Circle K experiences I’ve ever had. I started off flying to Providence, Rhode Island without really knowing who I was staying with. I only got confirmation from my ride about 2 hours before my flight was to take off. Once I arrived to Providence (sans camera as I realized entering my plane…) I come to find that Southwest lost my bag which contained my shoes…and all my liquid items, including hair stuff, contacts stuff, deodorant, teeth stuff, etc. No big whoop, my ride, Maryann Belasin (I later found out she was running for International President) drove me to Brookstone Pharmacy and I bought all the necessary items for a high price.
I then get shipped off to a Mr. Jon Freeman’s “humble” apartment in Quincy (pronounced Quin-zee). I say humble because it was FREAKING BEAUTIFUL! Jon is an awesome guy and really showed me patience and hospitality. We first went into South Boston area where I fell in love with the thick Boston accent and the hot guys they belonged to. *drool*. Anywho, we went backc to Jon’s place and he proceeded to make me taquitos and watch adult swim. Who knew New England people were normal? The next morning, while waiting for my missing shoe bag to arrive, Jon took me on a walk through his neighborhood. I mean, freaking John and Abigail Adams are buried in a church right across the street from where he lives! Gotta love the history. Anywho, the tour was fun but eventually my bag came and we headed to the train (I called it a subway…) onto Boston. Once in Boston I was introduced to some of the New England Kiwanians, including Jane’s counterpart (he’s an interesting fellow). I come to find out that Jon works for the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute in Boston and is one of the influential Circle K members out there. He’s so laid back that I never would have thought of it. Anywho, the rest of my roommies arrive and we help Jon and the host committee do some set up/ giving away free stuff to incoming Circle K’ers. We even got host T-Shirts, which I am actually wearing at the moment…
After Dennis finally arrives, the roomies plus Ryan (Dennis’ pal from Reno) head out to explore Boston. We got to see Cheers and explore all over the parks. We even saw this nude statue thingy that The seemed so enthralled with…we even reenacted the statue pose over and over again (ask The or Ajay for the pictures). We even spent two hours shopping at Macy’s and the Filene’s (recently bought out by Macy’s). For dinner we splurged at some eatery where The and I had fast food Pad Thai…they were ok but later on both of our stomachs went sour. After bidding adieu to Ryan and a tired Ajay, The, Dennis, and I headed back to the Boston Garden for some Shakespeare in the Park. All of us were tired and I seemed to be the only one familiar with the Taming of the Shew (though The perked up when I told him that 10 Things I Hate About You was based on the play)…we ended up not making it past half way through and left to go back to the hotel. Once we were all cleaned up and pj’ed up, we went to bed…only for about an hour. Anthony, the golden gate ltg, was without a room so ended up sleeping with us. I use the term sleeping loosely because he would keep us up for another 5 hours! Anywho, finally asleep (again, after reenacting the statue and such) only to be awaking EARLY the next morning by a miss. Jennifer Yep and SFSU gang…SANS DONUTS!
We finally get out of bed and get dressed to explore that early Saturday morning. We walked around to pick up lunch and then for some strange reason we headed back to Filenes. Damn people who like to shop, grrrr. Anywho, yeah, we enjoyed running around Boston but had to cut it short so we could go back, register, and meet up with our CNH peeps whom finally came back from LSSP. We picked up our T-Shirts (blah to red) and massive amounts of pins and headed back to our room to sleep until the first round of workshops. Along the way we picked up some people from the PNW District (Vickie who only gives hugs, Tracy who was quiet, and Helen who was an awake version of our Helen), and brought them back to our room to hang. Turns out they hadn’t been given their room yet so of course they could hang! Got to know PNW a little more, turns out they are as crazy as us, whodathunk it. The three eventually left and it became sleepy time. Of course we missed the first round of workshops and barely made it to the officer workshops. I was so sleepy through it I didn’t really pay attention. We proceed onto opening session where CNH was the loudest. We forgot our district cheer but so did about half the other districts. After opening sessions was my first introduction to Block Parties. The boys and I went upstairs to change, came back down and got our groove on. The rooms weren’t well ventilated and there wasn’t enough water, so eventually The, Dennis, and I went to the less than crowded country room and relaxed while learning 1 line dance. We eventually made it back to the hiphop room and proceeded to teach everyone our 1 line dance. One of the best memories I have….
Next day was all business. More workshops (I slept through again) and district awards night. Yeah, awards night sucked…BIG TIME. All that work for one person to get one award in each category? Fuck that shit. That’s when I started on hard core with the whole “fuck international” slogan with peter. Really pissed me off that for an award that “isn’t competitive”, it was very restrictive. I even wore a halter dress and looked all slutty and stuff! Grr…ok, no more venting unless with some alcohol in the system. On to the Governor’s ball. Apparently we weren’t supposed to change, but it was too freaking hot and again, not enough water. So The and I went upstairs to change into our New England gear, that way if we got in trouble New England would be to blamed. Hahaha, we’re such bitches. We had fun though. I learned that my ears can sustain massive amount of noise damage and that you should never lay on the floor out of exhaustion if Peter Yu is in the room (imagine sweating china man humping you…)
Monday…the day of House of Delegates. I have to say, although he isn’t the best public speaker, I have to give props to Brian for standing up there. I don’t think I could ever have the guts to handle myself on stage with 340 angry/hungry/annoyed/hot/thirsty/feisty delegates clamoring to take him down. I agree with a lot of the sentiments, but it was hard sitting through 4 hours of that stuff. Shoot. After a long time in the HOD (too early to really complaining…look for the next day entry). Onto club awards. Who rocks the house? CNH rocks the house and when CNH rocks the house they rock it all the way down. Oh yeah, Davis won its first International Award, 3rd place T-Shirt! Good Job Billy, you make me proud! But yeah, CNH may not of received a lot of District awards, but we swept the club awards. OOOOOOOH YEAH! After awards session we dressed up in 80’s gear and headed to our dance. After realizing I can’t dance 80’s style, I pretty much went to bed. That is right after I got a s’more from the other block party.
Tuesday, last day in Boston. How did I spend the majority of the day? In the HOUSE OF DELEGATES! Around 9 freaking hours in HOD. We did accomplish a lot, though I thought it would be funny to veto the merging of the documents which would have vetoed the hours upon hours of work we just put in to the HOD. We also found out our Trustees, congrats to one Mike…all hail Mike! I’m so happy he got it, he’s going to be awesome for the other Districts. I hope Kelly ends up running too, we need the awesomeness to spread… Once HOD was done, we had a few hours to wonder around Boston. We didn’t have enough time to go to Harvard, so we went to the back of Boston Harbor. The roomies and I took some pics, but we had to head back to closing ceremonies…just so we could fall asleep. Man we were tired. And then it was stand up clap, sit down, stand up clap, sit down. The highlight was when PNW threw candy at us, I got hit in the head with taffy. Stand up. Clap.
Dance that last night was really fun. Same loudass DJ. Same crazy dancers. Same nasty CNH. We also humped/tree’d a good portion of the new and old international board. We even got to tree one of my favorite trustees, Christopher “Kilts” Laubenthal, awesome guy! Ask me the moment he won my vote, I bet you’ll laugh along with me. We also got IPVP Wess, awesomeness. Ok so that was the last night in Boston.
In the morning, the boys and I overslept…repeatedly. We kept hitting our snooze alarms…oops. Dennis and I were going to take the 10am train to Providence, we ended up on the 1pm train. There goes my plan to explore providence. We said our goodbyes (everyone was half asleep) and Dennis and I took the train stations back to Providence. Dennis was staying an extra few days while I was heading out. Cool Ryan went window shopping with Dennis and me while we wasted time until my flight. It was fun making fun of Reno, since Ryan is now associated with RI and all…Anywho, cool Ryan drove me to the airport and then I was on the plane and then back into San Diego. All I should say is that I should have stayed home from work the next day…I ended up getting really dizzy and missing Wednesday. But year, that was my ICON experience, more or less. I just wish I had my camera…
NEXT UPDATE: KDCON and Disneyland…