I'm HOME! - Aquarium and Flights

I'm still in a mental fog as I just woke up from my passed out state for 15 hours. I don't even remember getting into bed...but my flights were almost a disaster, but I made it home at the time I was supposed to.

First off, my last day in Chicago. I had about 4 hours of sleep and Haley had stayed up all night and was tired. After we went to the Departure Breakfast where we ate and simply left, we packed up all our stuff (I was already packed from the night before) and brought our stuff to our friends' room. Haley passed out on their bed because she hadn't slept at all the night before and we were just all talking. I ended up going to the Shedd Aquarium on my own because Haley was just too tired to go. So she stayed in their room and slept about 3 hours more.

I like the Shedd, but I was VERY disappointed in their "World's Oceans" part. Their part with the dolphins, whales, etc and their Rainforest part were pretty cool, though. The Rainforest part because of how they did it and the look of the exhibits. The dolphins part not because it was dolphins and whales, but I liked the overall feel of the entire area. Funny enough, their dolphins are Pacific White Sided Dolphins, which I recognized as soon as I saw them. LoL They also have Alaskan Sea Otters, a California Sea Lion, and Beluga Whales (two with calves!). So that was kind of weird...I'm next to Lake Michigan and seeing animals from the West Coast!

On that note...I'd like to explain my feeling being near a lake. The Great Lakes are HUGE and vast enough that from a human's point of view, they're oceanlike. Except...they're not. Except for the fact you can't see land, it's a completely different feeling. You don't get the ocean spray, the smell of the saltwater, the water is incredibly calm all the time, the coloring is slightly different, there are yachts and HUGE boats everywhere, ducks swim in the water, etc. Going to the Navy Pier was nice and all, the water really is pretty, but it made me miss the ocean. I think that's one reason why going to the Aquarium was different. LoL They have to manufacture all their saltwater and most of the aquarium has saltwater! How weird is that?

Moving on, after the aquarium I made a quick stop at Panera since I was a little hungry and we don't have Panera near here! Once back at the hotel, I went up to the Leaky Suite to say bye to whomever was there. Haley's grandmother picked us up and we went out for REAL Chicago deepdish pizza (oh my gosh...It was SOOOOO good) and then we went to get gelato. After that we went back to their house to get Haley's car and we drove to her house. Once there Haley and I fell asleep for about 4 hours because we were both EXHAUSTED. I slept about 4 hours that night and Haley didn't sleep at all. So she had been napping al dayI woke up after 2 because I had passed out on my arm without realizing it and woke up again after another hour because the alarm went off, which we both wanted to sleep more so we fell back to sleep for another hour. We got up after that and watched some Olympics with her brother and dad and she was on her computer. We left at like 2:30 for the airport and got there around 3am. No one was at the desk, of course, and wouldn't be till 4:30 and my plane left at 6am. I was fine, though. I went and chilled on some chairs. I was so tired I think I could have sat there all day and it wouldn't have mattered! LoL

I was at a kiosk when they opened and I tried THREE different ways to get my flight information, but it couldn't find it. Eventually I talked to someone and they could find my flight information, but apparently it was all screwed up (thank you travelocity!) and they spent about 30 minutes figuring it out. Mind you, the 30 minutes was approaching 5:15am. Travelocity, if you remember (did I blog about it?), messed up my return flight home months ago and I had to call them about it. My flight from Chicago changed so they had me left in Denver on a multi-destination ticket instead of roundtrip. When I called them, they had to put me onto all new flights (ORD to Cincinnati to LAX to Monterey) to get me home. Apparently that messed up my ticket.

Anyway, I was panicking, but I got to my gate fine, but it left me so I couldn't grab a drink or food before the plane. I was okay at that time and I had two breakfast bars in my backpack anyway. The flight to Cincinnati from O'Hare is a little more than an hour and I slept on the entire thing, which was kind of a shame because I was ZONE 1 for loading! So I had two seats in a row and a LOT of leg room. LoL I wasn't first class (they were in front of us), but I must have been business class because of being zone 1. It was kind of funny, though, because that plane was a prop plane and I hadn't been in that big of a prop plane in a long time! Getting off the plane, I just quickly walked to my next gate (which was in another terminal...*sigh*) because I had like 30 minutes before it took off and I had seat requests for ALL three of my flights because of whatever got messed up. So I get there and they had a window seat at the emergency exit open. I took it so I had, once again, a LOT of leg room. I passed out for the majority of that flight too. I woke up for about a half hour because I was slightly cold and it was causing me to not get back to sleep. I got up to get my sweater and then fell back to sleep. I woke up when an announcement was made (they're hard to sleep through...) and a few other times, but no drinks or food for me!

My flight landed on time in LAX and I had about a 2 hour layover. So I went and got food and drink, called my mom and Chris (yes, in that order!), and walked around a bit. The problem was when I landed, my flight had no gate number so I was paranoid about that. I eventually, about 40 minutes before my flight took off, went and asked and it turns out I had to go to gate 42B to get the shuttle to go to the American Airlines terminal for the smaller planes. Ugh! I had forgotten! I've never flown Delta from LAX to Monterey. I've only flown AA to LAX to Monterey and it tells you ON the screens, but because AA does the flight, Delta doesn't seem fit to even tell you to go to 42B! So...I hurried over there and JUST missed a shuttle. I was getting nervous then I'd miss my flight and two other ladies showed up. We waited, not kidding you, 20 minutes for the shuttle to show. We get on and we get there and we RUN down the hallway (of course it'd be at the VERY end) and I say, "I have a seat request." The lady goes, "oh my gosh. I closed the flight! Where were you?!" So I did a quick one sentence explanation and she says, "are you sure you're on this flight?" and I'm all "Yes!" She was quick, though. In less than 2 minutes (the length of our conversation time) I had my boarding pass and onto the flight. I sat down in the seat behind where I was supposed to be (so I didn't have to move the guy in the aisle seat) with 2-3 minutes left to spare before the flight was supposed to take off. I actually boarded the plane with one of the ladies who was late too (not bad!). The ironic thing? We ended up having to wait almost 20 minutes because the didn't empty out the lavatory, which no one was happy about because the plane had been at the gate for almost 3 hours. LoL I actually stayed awake long enough on the flight to get a drink on the flight (the first time on a flight for this trip) and then I passed out after that. I was jolted awake with the announcement we were preparing to land.

Once landed, I realized my backpack felt a little wet in the corner my Snapple was in. I hugged my mom and we went to the baggage claim and I checked my backpack. Sure enough, my Snapple DID leak and I checked all my stuff. My newest Science magazine got most of the liquid. My computer case that's neoprene got some of it too, but it didn't soak through to my computer. I also had two of my signed books in there, but had placed them into a Borders plastic bag and the bag saved them! The bag was wet on the outside, but my books were fine (or as fine as they could be being in a backpack!). My luggage also arrived on this flight too! I was worried because LAX has this "bags must be checked in one hour prior to your departure or your luggage won't arrive with you." (It's true too...my luggage got scanned late once and it didn't arrive with me...) Apparently ORD doesn't have that rule. :P

Anyway, I'm all unpacked already. I came home after my mom and I ate out and immediately unpacked. I have a load of laundry to do now! The humidity definitely makes it so you can't wear clothes more than once. LoL After unpacking I basically passed out. I don't even remember getting into bed and I slept the ENTIRE night through. I think the only reason I even got up is because I had to use the bathroom. :P Maybe I can use this to get my sleeping schedule back on track! Ooh! I should try it!

Anyway, with that, I'm off to shower! I might upload some other photos from other people on Facebook, but that'll take a day or two. I need to get my life back on track with grad school applications and Contest work. I'm behind in responses to people in Contests from the Riddle Contest and need to compile the survey results. :P

Okay...Laters!

More Terminus Photos

I dragged myself out of bed at 7:40am after going to sleep around 3am. I conquered Megan's camera and downloaded her Terminus pictures and uploaded a highlight of the photos she took onto my Picasa site here. She took a lot of photos of staff before Reggies and at the Ball last night.

I'm just waiting for the girls to finish packing. I stayed up late and packed last night so I could get up this morning and burn CDs for Haley of her photos (she was having problems downloading them to her computer) and get Megan's photos.

I'm going to die (aka pass out) once I get home, I think. I am SO tired and I'm not feeling 100% either. The "Leaky Flu" was going around and I'm hoping I didn't get it, but I'm definitely not 100%.

With that...Time to pack up the computer.

Part 2 of Last full day at Terminus

What happened today?! LoL

I didn't go to ANY programming today as when we got back to the room everyone was napping or resting so then we all said we'd go at 3pm. Well...I slept for an hour (more like passed out...) and woke up at 2:30 and no one was there. Haley and Megan had gone out to do a few things and wouldn't be back in time for the 3pm program and then Shawna said she was going to another one, I think. Or maybe she wasn't going? I can't remember now. Anyway, Shawna came over for a bit and then I just sat in the room and rested some more. Around 5 Shawna and I went to Subway to grab a foot long since they're only $5. Then we got ready for the ball!

I just threw on my robes over my regular clothes and left my hair down, but I used the cord we had gotten and braided it into a headband of sorts. Everyone said it looked good. The majority of people wore dresses or dress clothes of some sort (the entire staff group wore dresses or some other formal type clothing). There were some elaborate costumes, though. Course, there have been elaborate costumes all week. My robes got too hot so I ended up taking them off at some point and putting them back on before I left early. Everyone seemed to like my robes, though. I definitely stood out. :P Some random guy took my picture as we were walking in too. Haley told him my mom made them and he went, "yay for mom." LoL There's this one girl who has a very elegant ball gown on. It's GORGEOUS. It must have cost a fortune.

I was kind of laughing because the feeling really felt like a prom except the girl to guy ratio was WAY off. They had dessert there, which was nice. The Grand Ballroom is, well, grand! Very ornate and gilded. It has a 2nd floor balcony that goes all the way around it too. It's REALLY pretty.

Anyway, I came back early to relax for an hour before we hit the Leaky Suite for the rest of the night and into the wee hours of the morning. I am going to be SO incredibly tired by the time I get home! I should sleep once I hit Haley's house tomorrow evening...We're going to the Shedd Aquarium tomorrow. We're dropping our stuff off in one of our friend's room and will then get picked up by Haley's grandma around 4:30pm. Once we get back to her grandparents' house, we're driving to Haley's house. Then we'll drive over to the airport sometime between midnight and 1am. My plane leaves at 6am and having Haley stay up all that time to drive me just doesn't seem right. So...She's going to drive me over WAY early. Let's hope my plane is NOT delayed even one minute because I may go nuts sitting in an airport any longer and then I'd miss my connecting flight in Cincinnati, which would not be fun.

With that...I'm off to chill till midnight to head to the Leaky Suite. I'll be home soon! 

Last full day at Terminus

I'm proud of Megan and I! We got up and down to the Keynote room with 10 minutes to spare! We rolled out of bed at like 8:30-8:45am to make it to the keynote. I don't think I'd have gotten out of bed except I paid $40 for the keynote (it was a breakfast keynote). LoL

I fell asleep at like 1:45am last night, but the girls came in at like 2:45am. When they opened the door it woke me up so I ended up being awake for like another hour. I think Sarah came in sometime close to 4am, but we were all in bed by then, I think. The alarm went off at like 7:45am and every time it did someone would roll out of bed and hit snooze. We'd all roll over once it was turned off. LoL I never got up, but Sarah, Megan, and Haley did. My alarm went off at 8 and I hit snooze twice and rolled out of bed and yelled at Megan. :P

The keynote I liked a lot. Tamora Pierce gave an interesting speech about how Harry Potter has changed Children's Literature and gave her own perspective and history with the books. She was funny, engaging, and showed she has some spunk, which is probably why all her female characters have spunk too. She's one of my favorite authors so I'm glad she was likable because it makes me like her as a writer even more.

There's a presentation I'd like to go to on Latin in Harry Potter II: Curses, but I'll probably skip it because it's in a half hour and I'm not sure I'm quite awake enough to make it. I WILL make the 3pm presentation on Harry Potter and fairytales (can't remember the exact title off the top of my head) and hit the other presentation I want to see later in the afternoon (something about the power of the press). We'll probably go out in town today at lunchtime. Megan hasn't seen the Bean yet and she needs to do some shopping. Can't forget the ball is tonight too!

Photos of Terminus Thus Far

I've uploaded most of the photos from Terminus here. I haven't mapped them yet on Google. I'll do that later since I have to look up addresses. LoL

Part 2 of Terminus Day Something

I am SO tired. I ended up napping for THREE hours. I thought the girls
were going to get me up so we could hit the grocery store and go shopping north of Michigan Ave, but no one
woke me up! I woke up at some point because someone woke me up moving
around in the room and we had a little more than 1 hour till the
podcast.

So I dragged myself out of bed and Haley and I had to
figure out where to eat because we hadn't really eaten that day. So we
were just going to do Kitty O'Sheas, but it was busy and I wasn't sure
if we'd finish in time. So we walked down Michigan and got food to go.
We ate it in the room where the podcast was going to be. As staff, we
got in early and staked out 4 rows of seats. Since Haley's with me (I
don't think anyone really questions here coming everywhere with
me...LoL), they let her in like she's staff. The podcast was fun. The
mudbloods played 3 songs and Alex from the Remus Lupins played the
intro and final song ("This Cauldron's got a hole in it. It's where the
news leaks out...").

I left as soon as the podcast was
finished so I could run across the hallway to see Tamora Pierce. Funny
enough, the doors were closed and they were still doing the
presentation and a presenter opened the door, but the door got stuck so
they couldn't close the door. I saw this and instantly jumped into
action of what was wrong because it was LOUD in the hallway since the
podcast got out. I turned around and someone who works there is all
"I'm giving you some house points for helping out! You closed the door
before I even had time to get here." So I got 5 points for Kohilo! LoL
I was also treated like I was staff for Terminus. I do have a small
"TLC Staff" pin on, but I don't think most people noticed that.
Presenters kept asking me questions...Anyway, I got my book signed by
Tamora Pierce! I just said thanks because I was going to the next "Meet
the Authors." Tamora wrote "Females Rule!" in my book. Actually, she drew the symbol for females and wrote "rule"

The
Meet the Authors was neat. There was three authors, but of course the
room filled out for Melissa. LoL The other two authors (Erin Pyne and
RM (the initials to her fandom name)) were interesting and both were
humorous. Erin is a dolphin trainer! How cool is that?! RM has a trivia
book and it looks pretty darn good. Erin has a fandom book out (and an
encyclopedia coming out next year), but it's more interviews with fans
rather than Melissa's first-person perspective of the fandom. Melissa
read the first chapter or introduction part to her book (about 6 pages
long). She spoke a little fast because she was nervous, but the book is
going to be AMAZING! Just in those 6 pages I was instantly hooked on
the book. She also read a little about how Jo got her contract for the
books too. That was really neat too. Overall, I'm really excited for
the book. It's going to be really good.

After the author thing
everyone is all "are you going to Reggies?" and no one knew and I ended
up deciding NOT to go even though I'd have liked to see the wrock
bands, but I'm tired. Haley is out in town walking around and Megan and Sarah are who
knows where. I have to be up tomorrow for Tamora Pierce's keynote
breakfast and I really want to do programming for tomorrow since I
haven't yet. I paid for the conference, I might as well!

With
that...I'm watching TV and looking over the program for tomorrow. I'm
beat. I'll upload pictures in a bit. Tomorrow is the Bon Voyage Ball
too.

Terminus Day Something

Well...After falling asleep sometime near 5 am because our room got invaded, I dragged myself out of bed at 9:40 to get ready to go see the Wizard Rockumentary.

We have another roomie. Sarah is staying with us tonight and she stayed with us last night. This all came about at around 3 am. LoL Then Shawna and Danae came down because their roomie was asleep and they were awake. We just watched some Olympics (Dressage!!!!) and just chit chatted. Once Megan came back we all got into bed and didn't fall asleep till sometime close to 5am. Megan set the alarm for some time I can't even remember because Haley had to report for her volunteer shift at 8am. Well, Haley didn't leave till like 8:20 (the panel was at 9am) and we all kept sleeping more. My alarm went off at 9am and then I got up around 9:40 and yelled at Megan that it was 9:40. She had to be at the vending table for Leaky at 10am.

The Wizard Rockumentary was REALLY good. I was thinking I'd see some amateur documentary, but this was QUALITY. I was really impressed and really enjoyed it which surprised me since I'm not all that into wrock. After this whole conference though, I may have to go look up wrock again. After seeing them live, there's just nothing like it. The documentary was really good too because it captured the heart of what wrock is and it told the history of some of the bands too. Seeing it with a room full of people who know wrock was fun too because people would sing along and cheer for various bands that came up. There were so many funny moments too.

To say the least, at the end of the documentary I decided to buy the DVD for $20. It was well done, helps the two sisters who put it together in their free time, and it captures a part of history since they also had footage from the Deathly Hallows book release in Seattle.

I haven't eaten yet and I will probably munch on some food we have in the room and just call it a day. I'm SO tired and our evening starts promptly at 7pm and goes till somewhere after 2am. So...I'm showering and napping. :P Hopefully tomorrow I feel more up to programming because, seriously, I haven't done a whole lot of anything related to Terminus. LoL Tomorrow IS the Tamora Pierce keynote breakfast which means I have to be up at 8:30 at the latest to get to the breakfast in time at 9am.

With that...I'm out.