Elliv!
For those of you not in the know, the college I used to attend, and the college that my girlfriend currently attends, is Cedarville University. It is commonly known as "The 'Ville". And Ville, spelled backwards.....well, you get the idea.
So what is Elliv? Well, during the months leading up to it, students make short films and submit them in the Alpha Film contest. Elliv is the culmination of this, it is the awards ceremony for the Alpha Film Festival. It is "modelled" after the Oscars, and is basically just a huge student event. The SGA (Student Government Association) spends like 75% of their budget on this one event. It's big. Between the actual awards themselves, there are various live performances by dance groups and musical groups, and the like. Quite entertaining, and often rather amusing as well. Everyone gets all dressed up, either in nice formal-type wear, or in off-the-wall crazy outfits. Sometimes both. Here is a picture of me attending Elliv freshman year. There is a red carpet beforehand, for the nominees, and the presenters, and the important people. It's basically a lot of fun.
So. The weekend. Saturday morning I had Guard drill, so I had to get up early and all. I meant to get to bed early Friday night, then my sister started watching "The Hangman's Curse" DVD. So much for that idea. Saturday I was the only Assistant there, so I had a good bit of stuff to do. The most important one was get my orders request done for the exercise in Georgia at the end of this month. Got that done, and everything else I needed to get done. Then it was time to go to Cedarville. I went directly to my old roommate's dorm, to get changed out of my BDU's and into my suit. I had been planning on going in my normal suit attire, being my black pinstripe suit, with a plain white oxford and a black/dark tie. Then while packing, I decided I wanted to change it up a little. I had a nice button-down silky black shirt that I had bought over a year ago and never worn yet. And it looked quite good with the suit. Now I can't have a dark tie with a dark shirt and a dark suit. Or at least not one of the ties I had. So I went with my white Beatles tie, which has all the album covers arrayed on it. This would turn out to be quite apt later on....but I digress. So, having changed, I went to pick Melissa up. She had gotten a new black and white flower pattern dress recently, which helped influence my clothing decisions. Anyways, when I picked her up, she was amazingly nervous, for no real apparant reason. Even after I saw her, she was still nervous. Just anticipation over the "big event", or something. I don't know. I mean, she had absolutely nothing to worry about. Here is a picture her roommate took of us right after I arrived:
See? She looks absolutely stunningly gorgeous. And, with her heels, almost as tall as me (OK, not really. But a lot closer than normal).
Anyways, we then went to Olive Garden for dinner. And much amusement was had at their custom Olive Garden sugar packets. Little-known fact: Olive Garden will serve you French Fries if you ask for them. I guess it's on the kids menu or something. Then it was back to Cedarville to wait at Elliv for the doors to open, and our section (the balcony, the cheapest seats) to open. We saw many wild and crazy people and outfits, and it was much fun. We finally got in, and everyone that had literally ran in as soon as the doors opened had saved all the seats (the balcony was sold out). We got fairly nice seats, near the center, and watched the show. It was a lot of fun, with many of the presenters doing amusing things, and the dancing was quite well. They started the show with all the lights dimmed, and a group of people dancing with glow-sticks. Very cool looking. They also had samba, and a very impressive flashdance-vs-"stomp" routine. At one point the campus "boy band" did a number, in which they all stood with their heads behind 5 TVs hanging from the stage, and their faces appeared on the display. You could see them twisting their bodies left and right, and the heads moving to match, even going off the screen when they ducked down. It was all pre-recorded and coreographed, but it looked quite cool. There was a parody of the recent campus play "Ruth: The Musical" entitled "Leviticus: The Musical" and starring the same people. It was very funny, and would have been even more so had I seen the musical itself. There was also an acapella group that did a rendition of Lifehouse's "Hanging by a Moment" (after starting with Rockapella's Coca-Cola commercial). The grand finale of the night came when the announcer "took us back in time" to the Ed Sullivan Show back in the 60's, the Beatle's first appearance. He called each of them out by name, and they performed "Help" (of course - Melissa was surprised when I knew what song they were doing - duh :-P ). Then when the camera panned close to them, we could actually see who they were. The lead singer was a student, but the other three were Dr. Brown, the college president, and 2 of the more well-known professors. It was quite amusing to watch them being the Beatles. And my tie proved to be quite appropriate.
Then we didn't feel like being in the big crowd of people at the "afterparty", so we went to Steak & Shake for some dessert. Then it was curfew. Sunday morning, we went to Grace in the morning, then went to Meijer to pick up some stuff, and then spent the whole afternoon enjoying the beautiful weather with a picnic lunch at John Bryan park. It was a perfect afternoon, just sitting in the shade, talking and relaxing. Very enjoyable. Then, alas, it came time for me to depart, having to drive back to Cleveland in time to get sleep for the week ahead (darn early shifts, making me get up every day at 4:30!).
All in all, a most splendiferous weekend, spent with an astoundingly wonderful woman.