Up in the 'burgh

Okay, here's part one of my last week adventure. The grad program I'm in had it's week-long orientation last week, where I got to visit the campus, meet all of my other classmates, and take real classes in a classroom.

My mom and I drove up on Friday and we checked into one of those nifty extended stay hotels that have big rooms with full kitchens. I had attempted to drive, but after two or so hours my leg was killing me. We didn't do much Friday evening because we were tired after a seven hour drive.

Saturday we got up and explored some of the campus, which is kind of like VCU in that it's taken over a chunk of the city of Pittsburgh. The alumni hall used to be a Masonic temple, for example. The coolest feature of the campus is the Cathedral of Learning, this gigantic 30+ story high gothic tower sitting in the middle of the city. It's a study hall/computer lab/student union/cafe/classroom thing. The study hall part is this giant chamber made entirely of stone that looks like the inside of a castle- ornate architecture and chandeliers and huge wooden furniture. There are classrooms all over the place, and the Nationality Rooms, but I'll get to those later.

Saturday afternoon I started classes, which were pretty much just extensions of what I've already been doing as well as team building and career counseling. Over the week I met and got to work with a lot of people, and we were all pretty relieved to find out that nobody was really "behind" on anything, because if there was an assignment someone was stuck on, there was sure to be a lot of other people stuck on it too.

They gave us a lot of free time to "socialize", but most of the other students took this to mean "go out and get drunk", so I didn't do much of that. Tuesday, Mom and I went to the Carnegie Museum, which is really cool. We started in the Hall of Architecture, which is full of fragments of statues and buildings from ancient Greece/Rome/Egypt and Medieval Europe. We also saw the Egyptian exhibit, the geology exhibit, and part of the art museum before the museum closed for the day.

On Wednesday we as a class got to tour some of the Nationality Rooms in the cathedral. There's about 20 of these rooms spread out around the building, and each one represents a different country or nationality. Most of the rooms are set up like classrooms, and some of the classrooms are actually used, and if you get a chance to see them, you'd be in very jealous of the people who get to take classes in them, because they're really cool. Each room is set up like a small museum- there are displays and pictures to look at, and the architecture, desks/chairs, and decorations are all based on the styles used in the countries the rooms are modeled after. For example, the Early American room is designed like a one-room cabin with a low ceiling, fireplace, and a small bedroom above it, the African room is built to look like a courtyard in between four thatched-roof huts, and the English room is based on the House of Commons and has stained-glass coat of arms in the windows for famous British towns and people (Geoffrey Chaucer's coat of arms is one of them). I didn't get to see all of the rooms, though- I missed the German room, the Chinese room, the Greek room, and a couple of others because it was an abbreviated tour. But! I get to go back for a weekend in October, so I'm going to try and get a full tour then, and see the rest of the Carnegie Museum.

Thursday we left, and got caught in some nasty thunderstorms. I think the cause of the storms was my copy of BNL's Everything to Everyone album, which we were listening to. I think it's cursed, because every time I play it in the car, it starts pouring. :(

Thursday evening my mom dropped me off in Baltimore and Otakon began!! But that's for the next update. :D

PS: I finished Harry Potter :D

No sleep 'til Otakon

And now it's time for Otakon~!

Thursday, I get dropped off at the hotel and meet up with Jenny and Michelle. We're the only ones here at this point, because everyone else works in a Barnes and Noble store and were thus preparing for the massive Harry Potter release party they were throwing. So, since our group was small enough, we go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, which was awesome. Mr. Saturn got a nose poke from an adoring fan. <3

Friday, we get to the con relatively on time and have some time to kill before the dealer's room opens. We watched the first two episodes of the Disgaea anime, which was adorable. The dealer's room doesn't open on time, so we have some lunch in the hotel and dink around the con some more. I got a lot of comments on my Yomiko costume. :D After checking out the dealer's room (when it finally opened), we went to Artist's Alley and I met the author of Paradigm Shift, which is an awesome comic and everybody should read it. I bought both volumes of the comic, and he autographed both and drew a picture of both main characters in them. :D After that, I had to change out of my costume because it was really hot. Michelle collects ball-jointed dolls, so we went with her to a doll meet with people from a BJD fansite for a little while. Needless to say, all of the dolls were adorable and I wish I could afford one, too. :( After that, we saw the AMV contest, which was great! We went back to the hotel and some of Michelle's co-workers came over, but I was falling asleep by that point and don't remember much after that. I took Mr. Saturn after I changed out of my costume, and he got the usual "OMG It's a Mr. Saturn plushie!!" comments. :D

Saturday, we sleep in by accident, and around noon the rest of the group arrives by train. We all don our Yami no Matsuei costumes and head to the con, and mostly just hang around and get our pictures taken. We took the sky walk over to the mall by the harbour and spent about a half hour trying to find a table in the food court because it was so crowded. After we ate, some of group went back to the hotel while the rest of us went to see the masquerade, which was awesome, and to prove it, here are some skits!

( Otakon Skits! )

Sunday was Kingdom Hearts day, but we spent most of the morning frantically getting everything out of the hotel and packing it all into the car. After that, we went to the convention center and ended up being trapped by the fountain for a good hour or so getting our pictures taken. Then we went to the mall again, getting our pictures taken along the way, and ate real food for the first time since Thursday. Hooray! We also got yelled at by a janitor because the table we found had been moved (by somebody else) into the walkway. But since he couldn't be bothered with a simple "please", even after we explained that we didn't know the table was blocking anything, we took our time eating and then moved it back. >:D After that, the con was over. Everyone else left by train, but Jenny, Michelle and I piled into the car along with our piles of stuff and drove home. And then I got Harry Potter. :D

All in all, Otakon was fun and I want to go back next year!