Miss me?

I'm baaaaaaaaack. That's the first thing I said when I walked into homeroom Friday morning. Although, it didn't feel like I was. I'm pretty sure that I was still in my little dream about JrNYLC. Did I really go to Washington? Did I really make all those friends? Did it really happen? DC was amazing. No, amazing is an understatement. Best time of my life is more appropriate. I've never had more fun. Me, 4 of my favorite friends, two suitcases and a cute new TH bag was all I needed. I was planning on telling you about two Fridays ago, but who cares about a boring school day when there are so many Washington stories to write about? The picture above is (from left to right): Stephanie (stephaniecassandra.blogspot.com), Sarah, and me on the plane. As we were taking off, I thought one thing "There's no going back" It was true. I was starting something new and, I didn't know it then, but the experience ended up changing my life. Anyway, we were watching Mean Girls and School of Rock, taking an endless stream of photos, and laughing at Joey and Allissa in the next seat over on the Southwest Flight to BWI. Since you have to have 3 in a row, the two of them were squished in with this big, grumpy, harry guy who they spilt Coke on. Poor guy. He kept giving us dirty looks as we left the plane, but did we care? Of course not! Why? We were in Maryland. That was my first time there, and I was loving it. The five of us were greeted by some lady named Marilyn. She lead us to another lady who helped us get our bags. Then that lady led us to this guy who raced us through the deserted airport to the shortly departing bus. We got there in time, all boarding with huge grins on our faces. It was about a 45 minute drive to the 4-H Youth Conference Center where we would be staying for the next 5 days. When we got off the bus, we spotted the "Young Marines" who were also staying at the 4-H. About 20 of them were lined up on either side of the brick walkway, hands behind their backs, legs spread shoulder length apart, staring straight ahead. I hoped that they weren't supposed to be our welcome committee. After waiting in line for about 25 minutes to check in and get my room key, I was outside again getting lost on the campus. The map showed an underground passageway, a ramp, some stairs, and a couple doors. That was enough to get me completely confused. I had to ask two cleaning people who didn't even speak English if they knew where room number 5105 was. Eventually, I slid my key through the slot and was granted access to my dorm. I was the first on there so I got the best bunk (on bottom so I don't fall off ;) ). I left my room, heading to get my name badge. I feel so empty without it now! We had to wear them everywhere at the conference besides the shower and in bed. I took a tour of the campus with Joey and went back to a large room where we played games like getting in groups and making weird shapes with our bodies to form objects such blenders and microwaves. As Stephanie said in her speech on our last day there "because that's what leaders do, right?" The rest of that day was a blur of new people. I met girls from all over the country. When we had our LFGs that night (Leadership Focus Groups), I met Christine, who's as big a Twilight lover as me! It took us a while to get off the topic about how hott Edward Cullen is. I also met Lindsey, a Junior Olympic Diver, and Erin, and Irish step dancer. We formed our group of cute girls right away. I loved the rest of my LFG, too. Those kids in Problem Solving 1 are hilarious and know how to make anything fun. At 10:00, I met my roommates for the first time. I would be sharing a dorm with Jessica, from Colorado, Nia, from Texas, and Susan from Florida. We were all kind of shy at first, but by the end of the night we were being yelled at to quite down. I was lucky not to get put in a room with any strange ones that had to label all their clothes or told you that they had a farting problem before you even knew their name. Yeah, that's what happened to a few of my friends. I really miss JrNYLC. It's hard to believe that my time there is over. Once again, there is no going back.