Sectionals: Declassified

It has been one hell of a whirlwind weekend. I was up for two days with about 3 collective hours of sleep. Finally got to bed late last night and have awoken sick. Hopefully I've got what Molly had and not what Marian has. That would just suck so completely. I'm going to try and do justice to a recap of the whole weekend because Friday was good and yesterday was very, very interesting (but not for the reasons we thought). Let me begin...
Friday it poured all morning and there wasn't a chance in hell I was getting up to trek through that to go to philosophy class. So I stayed in bed. It cleared up by the afternoon and I had to give a tour, which was fine. I got to relax and do nothing while Molly ran around getting ready for the fellowship because I had an excused absence. That night I met my cousin Brian and his wife Holly for dinner in Chinatown. We went to this brickoven pizza place called Matchbox and it was surprisingly good. Very good, in fact. I haven't really found a good pizza place down here (I'm very much a purist when it comes to my pizza) but this was good. We waited over an hour for a table, which just meant that we sat at the bar and drank. That long of a wait is reassuring though. All those people wouldn't be there if it sucked. So dinner was fun. They're moving to North Carolina and Brian thinks he can get me a summer job. That would be fantastic. I have to send him my resume this afternoon.
I get back to campus around 10:30/11 and Chris had texted me to say they were having a party in Steve's trailer and I should stop by. So I did. It was a very strange party. Steve, Chris, Nick, Ed and his whole crew, and then a bunch of random people who don't go to school here. I stayed for a little over an hour to be fashionable and not rude. Then I peaced. It was getting late anyway and I had to be in the Pryz by 7 the next morning. I was ready to just go to bed. But! I get back to my trailer and Erin texted me to stay that her and Erin Kilroy were on their way back from Adam's Morgan and going to Brooks, did I want to joing them? Well, I ended up going to Brooks. Which would have been fine, but Chrissy was there. I have nothing against her. I never did. But the second we walked in she gives me a nasty look and you can tell she wants to start talking about me to anyone who will listen. In the end, I got home around 2:30 and didn't get to bed until 3. Just over three hours later, I was rudely awoken by Molly throwing my door open because we needed to get up and get ready to be at the Pryz by 7. Grrrrr!

This brings me into the story of Espionage: Sectionals Declassified. What a day! We get there at 6:56 and the info desk worker won't let us in until exactly 7. Really? Whatever. So we get in, everyone else starts showing up and David and I are assigned to go sit at the metro and give directions to anyone who looked lost. A very exciting assignment, let me tell you. After that I had some time off before I was scheduled to work at the info desk. I ended up sitting on the third floor of the Pryz with Afifeh, talking about random stuff. Mark and Patrick came over and we ended up on a conversation about the post-conference party at last year's sectionals. It was awesome because, at first, Patrick was like "no I don't think I was there. I don't rememb-- oooooooo". It all just kind of dawned on him, which was hysterical. I worked the info desk and ended up getting into politics discussions with a bunch of the pledges. For the most part, they all seem pretty normal and cool. The day proceeded on with me running around doing minor things and just trying to make sure Molly wasn't freaking the hell out. This was done by staying out of her way and just helping her out whenever she stressed.
Now we get to the business meeting. I could write a whole post just on the drama that unfolded in the Hannan 108 auditorium. And believe me, there will be a long email that goes into great detail about what went down and why we think it did. Basically, the abridged version (for the sake of time) is that we have this business meeting with everyone from our section who is at the conference. Every school elects 2 voting delegates and the rest of the people just sit in the back and watch and, at times, may be invited to ask questions or offer opinions. At the meeting we vote on where the next year's sectionals will be (its at UMBC, who are a newly chartered chapter and have no idea what they're getting into) and we choose our new section chair for the year. Traditionally, people serve two terms as section chair. So this year we were going to nominate and elect Mark to his second year. Everyone knows this is what is going to happen and we're expecting this part to last about 5 minutes. Then all the non-voting delegates can leave and I needed to shower before the banquet. Well, for reasons that I won't get into, Zeta Phi (aka Howard U) decided to throw a metaphorical hissy fit and nominate some random person from section staff, who went to their school, to run against Mark for section chair! Are you kidding me!?!?! Then G-town thought it was open hunting season and decided to nominate Patrick, who is their section rep. He declined because he's Mark's best friend and he's not going to run against him. So then the two nominees had to answer questions from the voting delegates (and non-voting people can't say anything). Howard goes on to ask questions about embracing ethnicity and all this other shit. Now Zeta Mu (cua) is sitting there silently freaking out and plotting ways to kill Zeta Phi. Poor Molly had to leave the room before the vote because she would have been inconsolable if Mark didn't get reelceted. I mean, he's like family to her and that may have been the thing that drove her away from the organization. Well, Mark won, which was good. But it set the tone for the banquet.
All things considered, the banquet went very well. We gave Molly the Chapter DSK, which she was very surprised about. Mark gave Molly, Marian and Beth gift certificates to a spa as a thank you for the work they put into planning the conference and because they are "three girls who have no idea how to relax". Then we did Roll Call. No one in our chapter had time to plan a roll call so we put Alyssa and the pledges in charge of it. They got up to do their thing and the rest of the chapter was a little concerned because none of them had ever even seen a roll call before. Well, can I just say, they gave the greatest roll call I think I have ever seen. They may have beaten the boys from Alaska, Fairbanks at Nationals. It was absolutely hysterical. Luckily, I had decided to record it, simply because it was our chapter and the pledges. You can all go watch it on facebook. It's great.
Once everything wound down around 11:30 (and it was insinuated by section staff that we drink excessively, which we do) Molly and I had a few people back to our trailer to hang out. And by a few I mean Andee, Chris and Steve. It was just the whole "its over we can sit and do nothing" mentality. Molly went to bed around 12:45 because she had to get up this morning to go up to NYC. But I was still up and they all stayed until 3. We were just up talking and laughing about the conference, random people and a whole bunch of stuff. For the second night in a row, I didn't get to bed until 3 in the morning. That ok, I had a good time. This morning I woke up sick though.

So that was my epic weekend. It was pretty intense and very interesting. Overall, I think everything went very well and almost flawlessly, minus the business meeting. I just realized this is an insanely long post and it has taken me over an hour to write (although I was also uploading videos and checking my mail). I gotta go take Sudafed