:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 ::

heading out tomorrow
Well, this is it. Tomorrow is the first time I'll be driving off on my own without my parents for four days. I've had them drop me off at the airport before, as well as drop me off at a friend's house to catch the car to the airport, and the 'we're taking different cars, but still traveling together' thing, and the day trip by myself with friends thing, but I've never actually driven myself off somewhere away from them before for this long.

It's going to be so cool.

Yes, I know. I'm twenty-five, for crying out loud. So, I was a little sheltered as a child. Being an only child and a girl makes it really hard for your parents to let you stretch your wings. Let me tell you, it sucks being the only one in the group with a curfew. Especially when some of the members are younger. Twenty-two years old and I had to be home by midnight simply because I happened to have driven in my own car by myself that night.

So, I'm a little excited that they're letting me do this. Of course, it helps that the car I have now is about a million times more reliable than the last one. I just have the check the oil in a few minutes before it gets dark out.

itinerary
Early morning tomorrow. I have to get up around 5:30 or so. Make sure everything I need is packed and ready to go. Then, I want to leave here by a quarter to 7 the latest. I have to be up to Ridge, get Aly loaded up, and be back down to the LIE by 7:30 to meet up with Charsie and the Mirabelli's. We're meeting at the coffee truck on the service road before we head up.

Once there, it's all busy check-in stuff, mixed with rehearsals and lunch before opening sessions on Thursday night. At opening session, we do our formal opening ceremonies, introduce everyone, have a few speeches and some reports, and then the Majority degree. Missy's getting her Majority this year. Then we informally close for the night. I think tomorrow night's dinner is the one where we have to wear our district costumes. Yay...

Friday starts off with the Grand Rep session in the morning. We hear the reports of the Reps about Rainbow around the world, and then have speeches from visiting dignataries from other jurisdictions. Visiting Reps and Grand Worthy Advisors, mostly. Then, there's more rehearsals and free time activities (and the Grand Cross degree for Grand Cross members) before Initiation and Retiring on Friday night. We have the GWA's closing address and more speeches. Saturday morning has more rehearsals and then Installation of the new officers for next year that afternoon. We have our big banquet, awards ceremony, and formal dance on Saturday night. Sunday morning is church service and check out (not to mention a lot of cleaning up and packing of things) before we all hit the road for the drive home.

feelings
I think I'm more excited about what this whole trip represents than the actual trip itself. I mean, it's a step for me in life and my relationship with my parents. While I'm not thrilled about Grand Assembly as a whole this year, there are certain high points in that as well. Aly's being installed as a Grand Rep. Missy's getting her Majority. Perhaps getting the choir to sound good this year. ^^;;; Yeah. Seeing my Rainbow friends from around the state.

I just have this terrible feeling that I might end up being like an extra wheel. And that's a horrible feeling.

things to do
Of course, I will have my Net Lab & Troubleshooting midterm with me. Unfortunately, I won't have internet access or even a computer up there, so I'm going to have to do a ton of research Sunday night and Monday during the day for my C midterm. With everything that I've been doing this week (well, minus the other day of doing nothing, bad me!), I really haven't had the time to do it. Plus, I've finally started getting closer on that stupid match program that I've been working on for most of the class time.

speaking of which...
I got it working! I have it changing colors and stuff, everything's in the right spot, it works! Now, he wants me to add a fancy ending when the player wins. But, now that I have the big part of the program working, the fancy ending should be "P.O.C." Piece of Cake. Dr C, my math teacher, always said everything in class was 'poc, piece of cake'. He's very Italian, accent and all. He's a cool teacher, extremely good at math. Unfortunately, half the people in the class shouldn't have been in there. Taking 16 weeks of pre-calculus and cramming it into 8 wasn't easy on the students or the teacher. He had a schedule to keep, but they weren't able to learn it fast enough.

Lucky for me, I've taken a lot of math and physics. I had quite an extensive background already walking in there, so I wasn't intimidated in the least. It helps if you're not intimidated by it. You can go in with a more relaxed feeling and you're more open to accepting what's being taught. It makes it easier to learn the subject.

laundry buzzes
I'm being called. I must go to it... {{spaces out and floats to the laundry to finish}}