Harvard Competition - Feb 1994

This weekend was AWESOME, as in any off campus weekend with the ballroom family!!!! okay... the whole story:
Background:
Pat & Pam - dancing over a year
Me & Tonya - dancing about 5 months
Angie & Bill - dancing about 2 weeks :)

Fri: Inhaled my lunch so that we could leave be noon. Left at 12:15 - not bad group dynamics..if I do say so myself. The way down was lots of little small talk and sleeping. It was a gorgeous sunset! It was great we were travling uphill from aoubt 5 to 7. The sun just never set. It stayed about halfway down for about 1/2 and hour. And with all the hills and snow. It was beautiful. It was also really neat to see the rivers frozen over with snow on them. The whole drive took us a little longer then 11.5 hours. Pat got a speeding ticket about 10 minutes into New York. He was going 80 in a 55, but the cop gave him 70... He was kinda bummed about it the whole trip. It was his first ticket. The cop was funny though. He said, "What if this car rolled at this speed, what would your buddies look like if that happened. That's why we carry snow shovels...so we can scrape  people like you off the ground". It was hard to keep from laughing. Ate at burger King on the way there.

Boston has got to be the worst place to drive. People just park wherever they want. Next to a curb...in the street. wherever...This makes the roads extremely narrow. Not that this slows anybody down. People are passing each other inches apart going 30. Pedestrians.. they just go when ever they want. Red light, green light, middle of the street, if cars are going at them. Tehy don't care. SO we get to MIT, that is where Pat's friend, melissa, and Steve Hardt are. We had to pass their dorm like 4 times because of all the damn one way streets. It took us about 40 minutes after the inital pass to get there.

We met up with Melissa first,b/c Steve wasn't there. She was really cool. MIT is a very open place. They have co-ed bathrooms. Then we went one floor up to look at the Elvis Shrine that they had set up. About  7 people were smoking dope in the hallway. They weren't even trying to hide it... there was a big ol' bong there.  So after that, I taught one of Melissa's friends to Waltz. Then we went over to Steve's. He was watching Beavis & butthead, of course. We got ready for bed and slept on the floor. I'd forgotten how uncomfortable that was. I was using my nice nylon jacket as a pillow. That was a mistake. Nylon is loud when moved! Everytime I moved, I woke up. Plus, I was sleeping next to Steve's bed... he had one of those fake hands sking out from it. Well sometime in the night, my jacket came untucked and was touching the hand. Everytime Steve moved, it would rub the jacket and I'd wake up. Now you are probably saying well way didn't you just move the jacket. Well I w as tired and having a hard time falling asleep, the less movement I made the more likely I was to sleep. Plus, Angie kept kicking me in the head. We were sleeping in a 2 by 2 kinda arrangement. Now in the morning, Steve's alarm is REALLY LOUD. Bill was the closest to the alarm, but it took him a while to figure that out. Then we are yelling at him directions about how to turn the alarm off. We all dress up and head toward the comp.

It was so funny when we got there. We didn't know where the ballroom was, so we asked people. Nobody knew. People don't even know there own campus. So, we get there. It is in this BEAUtiful hall.. Just what I expected Harvard to be. Stained glass windows and ancient portraits of no-name people. The floor however was also ancient. It had lots of holes and ruts and stuff. Pam nearly had a heart attack after seeing the floor. Then to "help" matters, they added sprinkled wax on the floor because it was too slick. It is going to take us so long to get that shit out of our shoes. We danced swing,foxtrot, waltz, chacha,jive. We won 4th (out of four) on international foxtrot. But even more impressive was we made it to semifinals in American Foxtrot. Funniest thing is that I still dislike the fox trot.  My Latin outfit fits great. My tux needs a little work. I've grown in the chest and shrunk in the waist. If there was a dance that I had to cross my arms, I would have been screwed. And my pants were so annoyingly lose. Needless to say that dancing only a couple of times, then sitting through student syllabus, adult syllabus, senior open rounds... it got to be a very long day. Besides that I'd barely eaten anything. I had a bagel for breakfast at 7:45. Then we had peanut butter and jelly (just one) for lunch. With that much food, I'd didn't even know that I'd eaten. I can totally see Pam as a mother. Just hte way she made the PB&J . She laid out two rows of 6 peices of bread. On one of the rows was a long spread of peanut butter. On the other, a long spread of jelly. Then with lighting fast blackjack-dealer hands she put the peices together. I don't know... it looked very Momish.

We met this incredible lady there. Her name is Kay Teague. She is the collegiate ballroom network coordinator. She is the nicest lady. Other then all the official stuff, she gets adults to donate there outgrown or old clothing, then she will give them to college kids. It was the neatest thing. We were sitting there talking, she looks at Angie's feet and notices that she doesn't have dance shoes on. She asks "what size do you wear?" Angie said 6.5. Kay Teague (everyone calls her this, first and last name... I don't know way...kinda like micheal J Fox) said Perfect, and took off the shoes that she was wearing. She told Angie that if she wore them today... they were hers. These were almost $120 shoes. Taht was SO cool!

Pat and Pam got a 7th,6th,6th, and 3rd. So they did very well also. I can see Pat doing this all his life. He probably won;t go pro, but I can totally see him charming the lady's at a dance. He is very smooth, and has great presence on the floor. I can just see him in the future at some very snazzy place just waltz from one girl to another. IT also helps that the girls think that he is VERY cute.

We left the comp during the team dances b/c we were all so exhausted. We missed out on the fun dances like the polka, hustle, and merengue. but those were after the team and that was like another 1.5 hours just sitting there. We were BEAT, so we left. So I changed back into my Latin outfit ( from my non-fitting tux) to go to dinner. We went to Atlantic Seafood bar or something like that. It was very good. But also very annoying. Here I am STARVING. So I order a fairly big meal, which I promptly inhale. The others order moderate meals and then they get full about 1/2 through. Like I can't eat another bite full. I'm like I could order about 4 more entree's without a problem at all. But oh well... I was still very tired at dinner but everyone else (esp Pam) was very hyper.... Now i'm not sure... This is just my hypothesis, but I think it was the clothes that I was wearing. B/c when I got back I changed into my normal clothes, and shortly afterwards I became hyper again. My Latin outfit is so dark. Ject black shirt, belt, pants, socks, dance shoes ( well not at the resturant, but still) The only colored part was the silver belt buckle.  When I put on my bright green shirt and my blue jeans, I had just as much energy as Pam. Now pam, wasn't just filled with energy, she was leaking...

So after dinner, I called Harvard Smart people. I could only get in touch with Scott Greenburg (was going out with Bethany). Steve, Scott, us six, and 5 of Angie's harvard friends tried going clubbing. One club wouldn't let us in b/c we were wering tennis shoes, and the other had over an hour wait. So we just ended up riding the T around (that's there public transportation thingy). After that we walked along the frozen river and took a walking tour of MIT. Then we skipped down this "infinite hallway at MIT" after that got a bite to eat at the 24 hour coffee house and then we pretty much went to our separate rooms. This time I used the air mattress as a pillow for three people.... much better.

Left this morning about 7:30 and arrived here about 7:30, with two stops for food.

But we had such great bonding on this trip. Pam is such a character. She
is so blunt. We are driving back, and she says "I've got to piss so bad,
that if we don't stop NOW, we are going to have some serious odor
problems in this car." She and Pat and Bill were just heavily, joking
flirting the whole time. Like htey would seductivly lick their lips, or
she would suck the donut sugar off thier fingers. It was very amusing to
watch, actually kidna fun to participate in also. Pat and Pam started
Vwaltzing in the middle of the cafe to whatever song was playing in the
background. In the car, bill and Angie took turns at sleeping on each
other's lap. We would skip or sing or dance in the streets. At one point
in time, we were swinging to a song that we were singing as well. A
couple of cops passed us and gave us the funniest looks. Pam and Tanya
did a chinese fire drill at one of the stoplights (that is where you get
out and run around the car to switch seats with another person at red
lights) Bill and Angie were trying to do lifts, Pat said that is not the
way to get the girl off the ground... upon which Pam jumped up and
wrapped her legs around his waist, then they proceded to do a very
lambadaish kidna dance. This was in the middle of the street so you
know.  It was just so much fun!!!!!

I'm kinda disappointed in my SMART friends. They knew I was coming for a
while, but still none of them were around Sat night.

I had SOSOOOSOSOSOOO MUCH FUN! There is no way that I'll be able to work
tonight at all. No desire....engery is fading fast.