The 2009 FBLA Conference Aftereffect – aka conference flashback!!!

So I got picked up from UCI at 10PM on Thursday night. We arrived at Jackie’s house around 10:30PM and started cramming our luggages and stuffs into Michelle’s car. Michelle and Stephanie are the masters of luggage cramming o_O (Stephanie had already left at 8PM with Yvonne, Patrick, and Jimmy in hopes of getting to our destination of San Jose/Santa Clara earlier). Jackie couldn’t go on the roadtrip with us because of a family conflict =( so she rented out her parking space for Nathan to park his car (lol of course, the rent was free!). And I met Cosmo while we were at Jackie’s! He was like Fuzzy’s (that’s my big gigantic… white… fuzzy… bear… named Fuzzy… lol) twin! They were both white and fuzzy lol. And then we bid Jackie farewell around 11PM. Bye bye Jackie and Cosmo!!! So of course, with only Michelle, Nathan, Dheemanth, and Alvin in the car, I get the front passenger seat! Woo hoo! They’re going to have to fight me for the front haha =D So off we went!

The process of going up the grapevine (on the 5) was really really funny. Michelle’s sad car that ages really fast (due to her gazillion mileages) had trouble going up the grapevine haha. The car was stuck in some gear (not really a car person) and we were going up at around 40 mph. We were in the far right lane and were laughing our heads off as cars after cars passed by us on the left side. Poor car – it must have suffered a lot =( Due to this sad incident, we decided to take the 101 back home on Sunday lol. At around midnight/1AM, we got a call from Yvonne saying that she had already arrived at the destination! We, on the other hand… were still stuck on the grapevine… When we were near our destination, the windshield got kind of “cloudly” so I said “cloudy windshield!” That started our car weather forecast haha. Also, while were were on the freeway in San Jose/Santa Clara, we noticed that there was a “fake carpool” lane. Instead of having solid lines, it had dotted line the whole way through… and it was only the carpool lane at certain times of the day…. weird isn’t it? Anyways, we did make it safely to Yvonne’s aunt’s house at 4:30AM… it was really cold… and we had to wake up between 6AM and 7AM because we had to be at the Hyatt by 7:45AM to set up our PBL booth and Michelle had to give a welcoming speech at the opening session… Some of us slept for an hour… while others slept for two… 

So, because of our lagginess, we did not get to the Hyatt until 8:15AM… not bad… only 30 minutes late lol. The sad part was that we only had until 9AM for the booth to be up and running… opening session was scheduled to start at 10:30AM (if i remember correctly) and so we hurried to the ballroom, anticipating Michelle’s short speech. As Michelle was giving her welcoming speech, Yvonne and I were video recording and taking pictures of her. As soon as she was done and the keynote speaker was being announced, us PBL-ers rushed out of the ballroom to our booth to finish organizing our fabulous Random Workshop! While we were organizaing ourselves, we also had an awesome lunch from Jack-in-the-Box… When it was 30 minutes until the workshop was to begin, we rushed to the room where it was to be held… We had an awesome time with the kids at the Random Workshop (hope they did too… o_O)… after the workshop, we PBL-ers plus Justin just hang out in the room for a bit and started playing some games that we did not play in the workshop. “Dude” and “Ninja Animals” became a big hit for us haha. We even played those games all throughout the rest of the conference lol (and on twitter haha). 

The next part of our adventure is eating dinner at this one food/shopping plaza place off of McCarthy off of the 237. We managed to fit 7 people in the car… Michelle was driving, Justin sat in the front, Alvin & Patrick sat on the right side, Nathan sat in the middle, Yvonne was on the left side, and I was on the floor between Yvonne and Nathan… isn’t that fabulous? lol… and the car was visibly lower than normal… haha…. all of us except for Yvonne bought food from this one Hawaiin BBQ place… Yvonne bought Subway sandwiches and brought them over to where we were and we all ate a heartful dinner. Once we were done, we drove back to the Hyatt in order to attend the section meetings (fyi, there are 6 sections in California FBLA – well… soon to be 7 with the Gold Coast being split into two…). We were going to go to the state caucus meeting but decided to skip it since it was just a Q&A session lol. 

Most of us went to the Southern Section meeting (because most of us were from the Southern Section… lol… me and Patrick were from JFK High and Yvonne was from Santa Fe High). Since Jimmy and Dheemanth are from Arcadia High, they went to the Gold Coast Section meeting. Michelle, who is a staff member of the Inland Section, went to the Inland Section meeting. It was not particularly exciting… but eh… we got “I love Southern” stickers! haha. Of course, after the section meetings, there was the March of Dimes dance (march for babies?) lol. Again, we PBL-ers were put to work. With Justin, we guarded the side double doors (a total of 3 – but we guarded one) so that the kids can’t go out or in of those doors. It was really funny because the doors were open but we were blocking it playing “Dude” or just chatting. Each time somebody attempted to get out through those doors, Patrick would use the Taboo beeper and beep them out as the others waved them away lol. You have to see it to believe it… but too bad we didn’t record it =O 

The dance ended at midnight and we finally got to go back to the house to rest… luckily this time, we didn’t have to wake up until 8AM/9AM because our assistance was not needed until 10AM. It was also because we had to go pick up the Berkeley kids at 8AM (but since some of them didn’t wake up on time lol… we picked them up at 9:30AM instead). I drove Michelle’s sad car to pick the two up because she couldn’t see that well (due to her sleeping with her contacts on =O) – it’s such a different feel of driving from my car! After dropping them off, I had to go to Walmart to buy an extension cord for my sister’s friend (who needed it for her presentation in a competitve event). 

We finally got back to the house and get ready. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we didn’t leave until 11:15AM… instead of our arriving at 10AM lol… However, headquarters didn’t need much of our assistance… we played Taboo for like an hour before people got called away for assistance. In the end, it was only Yvonne and me left so we went to one of Santa Fe’s room. We played card games for like 2 hours… and Yvonne napped for like an hour… While Yvonne was napping, I went down with Alvin to get his jam… the “special jam.” I should have got mine too! (We didn’t know if PBL was going to get it or not – but we knew that Alvin was supposed to get it because he was sequestering the kids for a performance event – however we suspected that PBL was supposed to get it too because the lady said, “Oh you’re from PBL? And you didn’t get one? Here you go!”… I so should have just grabbed my jam then). 

It was time for dinner again so we packed into Michelle’s car again to go get food but since it was only 5 people, we didn’t have to do an awkward cram! The people who came were Michelle, Yvonne, Alvin, Nathan, and me – and of course, once again, I stole the front seat =D Also, because I had changed into P.E. shorts (lol the ones from high school) and a t-shirt, I looked kind of awkward (actually… REALLY awkward) with black flats on (the ones I wear at the conference). So I had to borrow Yvonne’s jeans (they actually fit me! lol). We ended up eating at Applebee’s. They have awesome burgers! Too bad my throat has been hurting so the fries didn’t exactly go down really well… it was like putting salt on a fresh open wound =O Then, realizing that we were a TAD bit late for the Closing & Awards Ceremony, we rushed back to the Hyatt (because a few of us needed to change lol). We got to the ballroom just when the competitve events were about to begin! I’m so proud of my sister! She got 4th place in Spreadsheet Applications and her ABR got 4th place too! (last year, the ABR was in 5th place =O) 

After the Closing & Awards Ceremony, we totally ran up to Justin’s room and just hang out there for a bit. We had planned to go to the Google headquarters and some of the other companies too but we had to wait for Justin because he had dance duties and curfew check. While we waited, Michelle, Nathan, Yvonne, and I went to the gas station to get more gas (because Michelle’s car was dying) and went to McDonald’s to get some drinks and food for Patrick. We got back to the Hyatt about 30 minutes before curfew and waited in the lobby (because the curfew was approaching, the elevator was being packed =O). Once curfew was reached, the rest of the PBL-ers and Justin came and meet us in the lobby. We then split into two cars and drove around Santa Clara (and other surrounding cities) to explore some of the headquarters and companies. The funny thing was that when we were at the Google headquarters, we got kicked out because it is a “closed campus.” Anyways, we went around and around… and finally got back to the house around 4:30AM/5AM. 

On Sunday morning, it ended up that only Yvonne went to mass (or some church thing… I’m not a religious person hence I don’t know the terminology…) – so she woke up fairly early =O however… nobody else woke up until past 11AM/12PM… (I on the other hand woke up at 10:30AM…) those lazy peeps! lol… Stephanie came around 1PM (because she stayed at her cousin’s place) and we left the area soon after that. 

—————- ahhhh I have to get ready for class AND go to class now… will be right back to edit this entry —————-

ok so now I’m writing the rest of this blog (in my Bio Anthro lecture…lol…) 2PM

So we had a little reshuffle in car assignments. Car #1 is Michelle, me, Jimmy, Dheemanth, and Nathan (once again, I claimed the front seat ;D) and Car #2 is Stephanie, Yvonne, Patrick, and Alvin. Most of the way home (until the 101/5 intersection) we followed each other home. We stopped at various places while driving down the 101 due to breaks, restroom, hunger, and anything else I dont remember lol. The most memorable place was the stop at the “beach” – aka the Central Coast… We missed the beach by like one exit T_T so we ended up at like a cliff near the beach… however, there was a playground there! And we played like little kids… it was also the place where I gave myself two bruises on my left leg, one on my left foot, and one on my right foot… it is very painful =O I even got a dent along with one of the bruise on my left leg T_T I’m handicapped!!!! *falls over* 

We then hit the 101/5 intersection around 9:30PM where the two cars parted… and then arrived at Jackie’s house around 10PM/10:30PM… Nathan, Jimmy, and I went back to UCI while Michelle went to drop off Dheemanth at UCR… I got back to UCI around 10:30PM/11PM (I don’t remember the exact times… since I was like dead tired… lol). And that is the end of the trip….

The trip is over… but look forward to my conference PBL flashback video! (I’ll make it once I get all the video clips and pictures… Michelle! Give me those files!)