Anyone driving from Portland to Mac sometime after 4 tomorrow?

I feel my trip home is best done justice through bullet points.

- Katie and I busted our asses to get to the airport, and made it half an hour before my flight. (3:30)
- Said a very hurried goodbye, and ran inside to find out my flight was delayed by another hour and a half. (to leave at 5:30)
- Did the stupid little self-service check in, paid $15 to check one bag because they don't allow any for free anymore, and it didn't print my boarding passes. This was not caught by me or the Delta attendant who checked them.
- Stood in the security line for twenty minutes. (4:00)
- Got turned away by the security guy for not having boarding passes.
- Went back to the Delta desk, asked the same woman to print my boarding passes.
- Stood in the security line for twenty minutes. (4:20)
- Got turned away by the security guy because the boarding passes the woman printed for me were for a JAMES CHAPMAN.
- Went back to the Delta desk, got my boarding passes.
- Stood in the security line for twenty minutes. (4:40)
- Had my swiss army knife confiscated because I forgot to take it out of my bag. Paid $10 to have them hold it for me.
- Waited for my now even more delayed flight.
- Boarded first aircraft (6:30). This was an aircraft that HAD A BROKEN BATHROOM AND CABIN VENTILATION SYSTEM, AND WAS LEAKING SOMETHING FROM THE OVERHEAD BINS ONTO AN OLD MAN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PLANE.
- Sat on tarmack for thirty minutes. (7:00)
- Finally got to Salt Lake City... only to do circles above it for forty minutes because there was a ground lock. (8:40)
- Running out of fuel. Must divert to TWIN FALLS, IDAHO in order to get fuel.
- Sat on tarmack in Idaho, fueling up, without being allowed off to use a real restroom.
- Another groundlock in Salt Lake. Left Twin Falls at 11 PM.
- Arrived in Salt Lake (12:30 AM). Obviously, missed second flight into Bozeman.
- TOLD BY DELTA REPRESENTATIVE THAT NO FLIGHTS WERE AVAILABLE TO BOZEMAN UNTIL MONDAY. (1 AM)
- Burst into tears in front of a Delta representative (1:05 AM).
- Finally booked onto a flight into BUTTE, a town AN HOUR AND A HALF AWAY FROM BOZEMAN the next day leaving at eleven. (2 AM)
- Curled up in the freezing airport on seats that didn't have armrests.
- Woke up (3 AM). Somehow drifted back to sleep.
- Woke up. (4:30 AM)
- Wiped drool off of face and messenger bag/pillow (4:31 AM).
- Got coffee and a muffin, wandered around Salt Lake airport, reading and window shopping in closed windows. (5 AM)
- Cat nap. (5:30 AM)
- Read until 8 AM.
- Called Dad, who suggested I try to find a Bozeman flight to get on standby.
- Charmed a customer service rep by being the only non-cranky person to deal with all morning. She gave me THE LAST SEAT ON A FLIGHT TO BOZEMAN LEAVING AT 10 AM!!!!!!
- Flight to Bozeman delayed by half an hour.
- FINALLY ARRIVED IN BOZEMAN AT NOON SATURDAY!!!! HALLE-FUCKIN-LUJAH!!

 "Friday and Saturday January 9-10, we need many people to judge high school students who are competing in speech and debate events. We are looking for friendly judges who will not antagonize the competitors….

Judges are paid per round ($8 for speech, $10 for debate) with a requirement of judging at least three rounds. There are three preliminary rounds of patterns A/B and finals as needed, and five rounds of debate plus quarters/semis/finals as needed. If you are available the entire day, both days for all rounds, we will pay $140.

If you are interested in judging (please let me know ASAP), have a question or a concern, you can email me at mwtruax@pacificu.edu."

Fun + money + do-good-ing. Pretty stellar combo. I'm 99% sure I'm going to go, so if anyone wants a ride, let me know.

 The pros of getting up early: I went for a walk in the beautiful snow when it was really coming down. It was lovely. And all my roommates are still asleep, and the snow is gone. I'm so glad I didn't miss it. :)

AND I get to play chef for our speech team get-together today. I'm making my famous breaded raviolis, and bruschetta with bacon and mint. And I think I'm going to host some fun dinner parties over Jan-Term, because I'll have more time and cooking for people is such fun!

As for the workload, my geology presentation is almost set to go, my trans-atlantic paper is done, and the digest is getting close, aaaaand I've barely started my other paper, but it's due after everything else. Then, the poetry portfolio is due Wednesday. And I have two finals on Friday morning.

Hey look, it's snowing again! Oh boy oh boy! Well, best turn off The Simpsons and get to work...

Wow. Apparently I did something really bad karma-wise a while ago, because the whole world seems to be anti-Kate today. It's only 1 PM and I've already met with way more hostility than one should in a whole day, and one of my biggest literary role models just told me that he doesn't like my poetry. As a whole.

Awesome.

 Reshmi said "y'know" 182 times during Trans-Atlantic today.

 OH EM GEE I FINALLED IN FOUR EVENTS AND NOW MY AMAZING ROOMMATE IS MAKING ME STIR FRY BECAUSE I HAVE NO GROCERIES AND AM STARVING AND NEED TO EAT BEFORE I GO BACK FOR AWARDS.

PHEW. And YAAAAAAY ROOMMATE.

I have given 19 speeches in the past two days. We'll see how awards go...

 My team's swag:
1st in Worlds Debate
2nd in Worlds Debate
1st in Open Prose
1st and 3rd in Novice Prose
4th in Open Impromptu
5th in Open Extemp
5th in Open Radio Commentary

My swag:
3rd in Open Poetry
1st in Dramatic Interp
1st in POI

Best. Tournament. Ever.

And now I get to chug the rest of my coffee and go to PREFERENCE. What a weekend!! Rock on!!

...I now have a four-tournament streak of coming home with a first-place award.

:-D 

What a lovely weekend I've had!

Friday night, I got to hang out with Jessica and Linnaea and Tess and James (and we baked a CAKE OM NOM NOM).

Saturday, I worked on speech all day, watched a movie with Morgan, and then, when I got tired but couldn't go to sleep because of noisy neighbors, I made a cup of coffee and... kind of... just... WROTE MY PAPER. It was awesome! I've never done anything like that on a weekend night just for the hell of it, and I'm really proud of myself.

This meant that I could relax today. I slept in, rehearsed my duo (and got it all finished and cut for time again!! we're not screwed!!), went to Wildwood with one of my lovely roommates, talked to Jeff for a whole hour, and rehearsed my POI.

I got a lot of work done, but still feel really rested and rejuvenated. Huh. Imagine that.