"You will do what must be done. YOU NEED TO DO WHAT MUST BE DONE!"

The theatre convention was fantastic! I've learned that when you get 500 theatre kids together in one place for a weekend, everywhere you look or go, something unusual IS going to happen. 

In case you didn't understand the title (which I actually know for a fact you didn't understand it) , let me explain. During the convention all sorts of workshops were going on. A few friends and I decided to go to a character developing workshop centered around hero-type characters. We fully expected to just be taught or something, but instead we found ourselves in the middle of a massive fantasy role-play thing. When the first thing the teacher told us to do was sprawl our bodies on the floor and breath fire and then referred to it as the "exposed pose", we knew something was wrong. 

The man kept telling us what to do and "guided" us through a "quest" as we "rescued our families from an evil tyrant". After a little while, it got scary. He told us to chant "I will do what must be done." My friend baylee refused to say it because she felt like she was pledging into some cult. What made it even weirder is that everyone but my friends and I were getting really into it. They were basically screaming the chant and there was even one guy who when we were "climbing a mountain" he was grunting and gasping for breath. I think it might have made the teacher feel a little too powerful. 

Afterwards the five of us figured out that in the middle of the night, we were going to hear "You have to do what needs to be done" over the hotel loud speaker and we would all wake up and get out of bed and involuntarily march into the workshop room to have some hero-cult-ceremony. I can imagine the hotel security videos now- fifty high school students walking like zombies through the hotel with blank expressions, and then the five of us walking in our footy pajamas, sobbing and screaming "No, I don't want to do what must be done! I DON'T WANNA!" 

And then there was the boy who told me he loved me 45 minutes after meeting me. He and his friends sat behind me in one of the competitions and we were talking a little bit before the competition started. Then during the competition I heard him talking to the person next to him saying "The girl in the green in front of us is really cute, yeah she's really cute." (I was the only one wearing green in the whole row) Then our group had to leave the competition early and when we got up, the guy yelled "I LOVE YOU" with a completely serious face. And when we were waiting for an elevator, him and his friends ran up to the elevators gasping for breath like they sprinted the whole way and he said "I told you I loved you because I thought I'd never see you again"  He then became known as my stalker because for the rest of the conference I saw him EVERYWHERE. 

There was another guy who became known as "bread guy" because every time we saw him he was gnawing on a french baguette. Just carrying it around, taking bites out of it. Unaware that the bread convention is next weekend. 

So overall the conference was fun, but of course it would have been more fun if our school had won a single thing. Which we didn't. Which sucked. 

And now for a photo montage to make this less paragraphy and boring. 

This is how my hair looked after I took it out of the most tight, painful bun in the history of hair. 

Our horrible messy room.

Notice my friend Bryn looking possessed in the background. 

Also for your entertainment is a very scary video of the birds that were flying in the city and making us all feel like we were in a 1960's horror movie. 

Speaking of horror movies, I should now get back to my marathon of Halloween. I'm currently in the middle of Halloween 5 and judging by the sound effects and music I'm hearing right now, someone is about to get killed. Oh, yep. That was a scream. Oh, Rachel! Haven't you learned not to stay in your house alone? 

Always,

Abby Noel