it's a smoothie...a special smoothie!
Sooo okay. This weekend was actually pretty fun. I KILLED BILL with the bf (I need to see it again because I need to...!) then bought the Vol. 1 dvd at Best Buy...=X I swore that I wouldn't, since I know that a better "special edition" one is going to come out when Vol. 2 comes out. I have no willpower ;P ANYWAY. Neener and Leanne came over late that night. We made a "special smoothie" for the three of us to share. Watched my new dvd (:D) and ended up going to bed waaay past four. Which really sucked because we had to get up before eight.
We got to the Radisson by Knotts at around nine. It was raining =0 Dee got dropped off by her boyfriend and we all went to the lobby. We're kind of trying to start up our chapter of Sr. YBA again, and we didn't really have an advisor. We wandered around the lobby and found a bunch of people that were attending the conference. We were about to follow them onto their bus, but it turns out that it was the Mountain View/San Jose bus.
We finally found the correct shuttle and headed over to OCBC for registration.
Turns out, they were feeding us :D We all got some muffins and Neener and I got coffee. I ended up getting a lot of coffee =X
We went to morning service after that. Hoooly crap was I regretting that huge cup of coffee. The keynote speaker was speaking and I had to pee. What he was saying was good, but I was in such discomfort that I was ready to run out in the middle of it. I managed to sit through the whole thing, but as soon as he finished and they moved on to announcements, I took off.
After the service there were a bunch of workshops. For the first one we sat in a circle and talked about Buddhism. They had us write down what we liked best about (Jodo Shinshu, I assumed) Buddhism. Neener and I had almost the exact same thing. Haha. That seems to happen to us a lot.
The second workshop was a meditiation workshop. I didn't like it--I was so tired that I was starting to tip over in my chair. Plus, my stomach started to growl =\
It's a good thing they fed us lunch right after the second workshop. I was starving. We got Subway sandwich packs :D Sandwich, chips, cookie, drink. Tasted so good.
After lunch they had us do this random activity that appeared to have no point whatsoever. The aim was to build the largest structure possible using mini marshmallows, marshmallow peeps, and toothpicks. These guys that I swear had been after Neener since we sat down to breakfast came to build the marshmallow structure with us. Heheh...they were like 18 years old. Anyway...
After the whole marshmallow thing we had a question and answer session with the ministers. In all honesty, that was one of the best parts of the conference. The ministers were all very candid in their responses. The first question that the first minister drew started with "What is Buddhism's stance on sex?"
Minister: How do we feel about sex? Feels good! (insert applause here) Just be careful
The ministers all agreed and disagreed with eachother, but never got into any debates. Just stated their points of view and let it be. It was all good.
We got a break after the Q&A session. We took the bus back to the Radisson and picked up my car. By then I was really starting to feel the lack of sleep.
keahiwai-ing it in the car
When we got back to OCBC we sat and chilled in the car and listened to CDs. We were in there for well over an hour...I think. When we were in the lot we saw a catering van from some Japanese restaurant pull up. I forget the name, Sanbi?
We had dinner at 7:30ish? We almost felt bad for not changing into nicer clothes after we saw the table. But it was all good. Our table was one of the last ones to be called to get food :( Plus those guys (+ two more guys) that were following Neener came to our table with food before we were called. One of them was gentleman enough to wait until we all came back with our food before he started eating. Incidentally, he was also the token college student out of the four guys (he is a first year, the rest were high school seniors).
we paid four bucks for this ;P
After dinner was the dance. It was then that I didn't regret not changing. They had just gotten the floor waxed or something, so they made everyone without rubber-soled shoes take them off (heheh). Okay and why was there a guy who could Beyonce-bootyshake better than any girl there? He was crazy.
We went to go get our photo taken about an hour into the dance...which is why I'm all greasysweaty and nasty looking. Oh well.
One of the high school guys and some girl brought out a chair and a tablecloth to put the chair on (didn't want to scuff the floor y'know) and started crazy freaking! The girl was freaking so fast she was like a human vibrator or something. So wrong. I think she was a high school kid too.
After the dance ended, we went back to the apartment. First, we stopped at a Ralphs to pick up a six-pack of Bacardi R and some dip for the Trader Joe's (Trader Hoe's) chips that Leanne had brought the previous night. I was sooo tired, but when we all got back we toasted with our bottles and ate lots and lots of chips and dip. Dee had the bright idea to try a Trader Joe's oatmeal cookie with the sour cream/guacamole/salsa/bean dip and like the lemmings we are, we tried it too.
Neener and Dee decided (after finishing their beers and the majority of Leanne's) to try a margarita, but they didn't know what order (beer before liquor or vice versa?) would make you sick. Once we figured it out, Neener decided to write it on our small whiteboard but for some reason wrote "beef" instead of "beer". Lack of sleep/alcohol will do that to you.
We were all tired, but ended up going to sleep well past three anyway. We woke up at 7:30am so we could get ready and drive back to LA in time for service. We got to Nishi about an hour early, so we left my car in the parking lot and went to go get breakfast at McDonalds.
breakfast :D
Sausage McMuffins, orange juice, and hash browns. SOOO GOOD!
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