Okay, here's part of the rest of the history day 2012 experience:
Sunday, June 10, 2012
The communal showers at the University of Maryland are disgusting, so I wore my sandals the whole time in the bathrooms. As we were leaving the breakfast hall, we found the Guamanian group and I asked if anyone had known Jessie Okiyama when she lived there, and I actually found her cousin! Thats her in the picture below. Jessie though it was really cool that I ran into her cousin, whom she hasn't seen in a while. Also on this day, Ansel got to set everything up for his project, and I got to see what he was going up against. There were almost 100 other exhibits in his division, and it felt like almost half of them were on the Civil Rights Movement or women's rights. Unfortunately, every other North Scott student decided to go into D.C. leaving Ansel and I at the Student Stamp Union, which is basically a huge building used for many of the projects to go on display and present.
After a while of wandering, I met a pair of siblings from Missouri and talked to them for a while, and then met a group of cool Texans, one of which it turns out had beat Allie and I out for a top three position last year. It was cool to meet so many people from everywhere.
That night was the opening ceremonies in a grassy field at the university, where every state was recognized and a frenzy of button trading took place. By the end of this night I had the overwhelming majority of the 55 affiliate buttons.
Afterwards, we headed back to the Stamp where we had dinner at McDonalds, and I got a chance to catch up with the Nashua-Plainfield History Dayers that I became really good friends with last year. Unfortunately, of the 20 different Iowans that I bacame pretty good friends with at either state of nationals, only one from Nashua-Plainfield returned. This year, she brought along new history day partner, her boyfriend who didn't qualify, and a group of two other girls.
After we got back to the dorms, we went straight to bed since Ansel had presentation the next day.
Monday, June 11, 2012
This day was Ansel's time to shine! After presenting he was a little scared, but thought he did all around good. I spent the day walking about with my Nashua-Plainfield friends, and then at night we all made our way to one of the best parts of nationals: the dance. For three hours we hit the dance floor, which was basically a huge crowd of students smashed into one ball of sweaty heat. Last year there was some inappropriateness going on, so they had to turn the lights on, but this year they didn't play any slow songs, so they kept the lights off. With everyone jumping to the beat, you could literally feel the floor move underneath you. Last year my mom hit the floor, and this year she made a return and everyone made a circle around her as she battle danced with some other kids. It was awesome. One of our new Kentuckian friends later said that his favorite part was when "the old lady danced." Allie Stutting, who herself is an awesome dancer had a dance battle against another guy and it was hilarious to see it. At some point they got me to go in the circle and rap Nikki Minaj, which they loved. It was a crazy time, and by the time we got on a bus to get back to the dorms, we were sweaty messes.
Back at the dorms, I got to meet the new Kentuckian friends in the lounge, which Allie and Ali met the night before. We spent a good few hours playing a new card game that they taught us called "Egyptian Ratscrew" which was awesome fun, except that I was terrible at it. The Kentuckians went to bed early, so we stayed in the lounge until one playing card games.
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