ICPA

Illinois College Press Association this weekend. (and you'll notice a lot of the longer posts by me will be pretty much copied and pasted from my xanga, with a few details changed of course...... different audience)

Hillary (city), Williams (EIC), Jen (admin.) and me left good ole' Chucktown for a 3.5 hour drive to the big city to learn about journalism, to get drunk and to attend a job fair, not in that order. Once we got into town, we got a bit lost but found our way and went to our room.

There was a foreign person already in it. It was strange because I was just telling Hillary how that happened to me and my parents the time we came to visit EIU for the first time to get my first schedule. So we waited to get a new room, got settled in and headed to get something to eat, at Pizzeria Due. Big ass deep dish....... ahhhh drooling......it was so flippin tasty.

When we got back it was like 10:30-ish, so we went to Haas'(photo) room. Me, Hillary, Williams, Jen, April (campus), and Thill (staff writer) were chillin with some booze. Thill was cracking everybody up bc he'd never been in a huge city b4. Jen was wasted off one wine cooler thing, and when Thill lit up a cigarette she threw up a little, and we had to send her ass to bed. Aaron (news) came back from hanging out with some chicas and we listened to Thill quote Anchorman in its entirety and then we went downstairs to let them go to bed.

Holly (verge- entertainment) and Renick (ass. sports) showed up and convinced us to go downstairs and go to the hotel bar. I had a Fosters- Australian for beer.

Friday morning, me, Hillary, Jen and Holly got up butt ass early to get our schedules. All the guys looked so cute in their ties. And Williams in his suit. And Woike (sports), wearing what he usually does only with a tie. I had interviews at 10:30, 11 and noon-fifteen with the papers in Champaign, Aurora and Rock Island, and I swooped in on Springfield. When we were done interviewing, I went out to eat with a buttload of DEN people and Woike's sister Sarah (who is frighteningly exactly like Dan(Woike)) at ESPN Zone. I had a massive cheeseburger and- it ruled.

We walked back to the hotel to sneak in on the keynote speaker, which was way important to Williams, stayed after to eat some flippin cookies and drink the cutest bottles of Coke ever. Then it was shower and dinner time.

Got out of the shower and whaddya know- there are 4 boys in my room, smoking pot no less, and I didn't have any clothes in there with me. We had reservations at a restaurant called Rock Bottom. Joe (DEN adviser) ate with us. It was fun, they had their own brews there! I had one called Chicago Gold. It was real good and it hit me real fast.

After that we took cabs to Tequila Roadhouse for a free party with Joaquin's (ass. verge) gf Maria. Free drinks from 9-10. Schroeder (opinions) was dancing up on everyone singing "Schroeder's dancin on you, he's dancin on you..." Woike and Marcus (sports writer) couldn't get in, because the bouncers said the bar was full. Really they just wanted to make them wait till 10 and charge them cover. We think it was a conspiracy. Everyone else was there though, it was awesome. My camera died so I didn't get that many pics. (check my webshots page if you wanna see them.) For the most part, it was too dark and they were all off centered.

Back to the hotel. I recited the ladies man poem in the cab, which everyone thought was hilarious. I was gonna tell Gisondi but I didn't because he was with Tidwell (dept. chair- journalism) and I got intimidated. To the room for liquor we already had purchased, and then to the hotel bar. Met up with Haas again, we tied 1-1 in pool while April hit on some ISU guys. Schroeder, meanwhile, got kicked out of the bar for bringing in Keystones. As if someone wouldn't notice a guy with 4 stones in his pants.

To Aaron's room we went, 7th floor. Colin (old photo, now alumni) came to visit!!!! Which was cool until he tied my shoes together and sprayed me with Woike's cologne, in the face. I tried hopping out the door and was unsuccessful until Hillary came in and took my shoes off. I was barefoot the rest of the night. We spilled water everywhere, broke a glass, made a ruckus and then we left, to let Aaron sleep.

Went to Haas' room on the 19th floor to use the potty (which was even farther away from where I was than my room.) Bugged him an Williams for awhile. Apparently I was flippin hilarious. Williams was trying to sleep, so after I called Aaron's room a million times, and called my own room- laughing whenever Colin asked me where I was or who I was with or if I wanted to talk to April, I hung up and went to my room. My shoes- hanging on the sprinkler system. Everyone was kicked out by Hillary and April and I decided to go eat my leftover piece of pizza- in the hallway on the 7th floor, outside 3 of our rooms.

Schroeder and Meinheit (old EIC) came to visit us and partake in the one piece of pizza April was freaking out about, since it was pepperoni and she's a vegetarian. We talked forever, and my flippin eyelids were swelling shut, so I decided to sleep in April's room instead of going up to mine.

Next day, we wake up for Haas' photography thing, missed Williams' roundtable. I did the walk of shame from April's room. I felt like I'd just had a one night stand, and I'm pretty sure the maids were talking about me in Spanish. Bitches. Plus I still smelled like guy from Woike's cologne. I was too embarrassed by them to take the elevator, for fear more people would think that about me, so I hiked it up to 1609 in the stairwell.

Went to the "shoot Chicago" thing, which is horribly named if you ask me, and tried to guess which pic was Haas'. It's running in the Chicago RedEye (the Trib) tomorrow. I was right!!! I felt special that I knew.

Then we went to the awards ceremony, and ate a great meal, of pasta, salad and a breadstick. The DEN won like a buttload of awards. 24 I think? People like Schroeder, Aaron, Williams, Kevin, Joaquin, Thill, Holly, and Haas (who won 12 for himself) got stuff for editorial cartoons, sports design, pics, news and online. I was so very proud. We didn't win in the overall category, but I think we should have. The Daily Northwestern took it home. The award was renamed for our very own John David Reed, from EIU.

Back home we went. Only I almost got my car hit, then we got lost, then we took 55 and got about 45 minutes out of our way.

Josh's (ass. photo) friend's party was that night. We got staff stud (staff writer) to come and we had a blast, only I had too much, cried cuz I thought I was going to throw up and Caleb and Danielle had to save me. And that's all I'll say about that.