I'm going to NYC!!

So....last month Scholastic had a JK Rowling Open Book Tour Sweepstakes. JK Rowling is coming to the US to do a book reading, Q&A, and book signing for schools in Los Angeles, New Oreleans, and New York. Well, in addition to those, she's doing a book reading, signing, Q&A session for anyone older than 7 and resident of the US! The event would be at Carnegie Hall in NYC on Friday, October 19th at 7pm. There would be 1,000 grand prize winners and the prize was 2 tickets to see her read, the Q&A, and get a book signed. Accommodations and flights would have to be taken care of by the winner. So, of course, I HAD to enter into it even though I'm still "broke" from the UK and Florida.

Last week they were contacting winners and a friend of mine got picked and I was getting more depressed as the days go on thinking I didn't win. So this week (after Monday) I gave up hope in winning. It just wasn't meant to be and there would be other times.

Well...I was sitting in class at about 12:20pm on Wednesday and my phone rings. I'm staring
at it on the desk flashing a "Call 1." I knew it had to be an unknown
number. I've been reading the comments on the news post about the
winners being contacted on TLC's main page so I know from that (and my friend's account) their numbers don't show up. So it's the BEGINNING of
class and this happens. So I'm sitting there thinking, "could that be
them? I can't remember which number I gave them. It could be Chris
though, his number is blocked." So it stops ringing and a
voice mail was left. So it's making even MORE paranoid. LoL I even was
trying to figure out what time Chris would have had to start work to
call me at that specific time. I figured out there was not much chance
it was him, but it STILL could have been him. I was trying to not get
my hopes up. So we were finishing a movie and I'm sitting there trying to
pay attention and not freak out. FINALLY at 1pm she says we can take a
5 minute break (we do every class) so I get up (we ALL have to get up
and move around) and I check my voice mail. It starts off, "Hi, this
message is for Bethany Taylor..." I KNEW right then I won. LoL Then it
goes onto "This is Vicky from Scholastics and I'm actually calling to
congratulate you..." I basically freaked out. I'm standing next to my
friends saying, "oh my gosh! I can't believe it! I won!" They're looking at me
funny. I finally tell them when the message ended. They just gave me
one of those "oh, that's nice" looks.
I went out of the room to call my mom. I'm trying to hold it all in and
I called her and she said I sounded funny like I was distressed. So she
was worried about what could have happened! Then I told her and she's
all "really? You won?" It was funny, but I was so excited! So I went
back and had to sit through 45 more minutes of class knowing this
information! I tried calling Vicky after class, but there was no
answer. I left the worst voice mail ever. I'm all "Hi Vicky, this is
Bethany Taylor. I'm just calling your...I mean, returning your call. I
would absolutely love to accept the tickets, prize, [I said something I
don't remember], whatever they are. You can call me back at..." I gave
her my number twice (hope I said it right, I don't even remember saying
the numbers) and hung up.

Now to wait for the return call because I have some papers to fill out and send back to them! So, yes, I and my mother are going to NYC to see JK Rowling!!!! Am I excited? Oh yeah!