At the end of my sophomore year at Free State Mrs. Folsom (the newspaper sponsor that helps make the publication of not only the lovely Free Press but also the amazing Talon yearbook) alerted us about a journalism camp at Ball State University in Something, Indiana (I can’t exactly remember where but its somewhere an hour away from Indianapolis). I signed up because if it helped me get ahead in my budding journalism career then sign me up. What I didn’t know I was signing up for was a three-thirty start to my day, an hour an a half wait for our bus, and an extra 20 minute wait for the bus to actually leave the airport.

For those of you who know me you know that I am not a morning person. I am a stay-up-so-late-it’s-morning person. So the fact that I had to drag my butt out of bed at three-thirty was Hell for me. I can hardly get out of bed for zero hour, let alone three-thirty; but somehow I managed to get up and get dressed without putting my socks on my hands or my shorts on my head or something crazy like that. My mom did the usual mom-thing; she hugged me good-bye and told me to “make new friends!” which I was too tired to acknowledge. My dad, coffee clutched in his hand, hardly said a word to me as we backed out of the driveway and into the night, which was fine with me. That’s another thing that accompanies lack of sleep for me: sudden lack of communication skills.

The hour long car ride from Lawrence to the Kansas City airport was uneventful. My dad and I occasionally bantered but otherwise it was basically silent. We had picked up Katherine on the way and every now and then we would make some conversation that lasted one to two minutes (again, lack of sleep=lack of communication skills). When we finally got to the airport Folsom greeted us with a smile that was way too bright and cheery for the now four-thirty to five o’ clock hour. I just wanted to get in the plane and go. Anywhere really, as long as there was some place to lie down and sleep.

The next few hours are a blur of boarding the plane, sleeping, deplaning, and then boarding again before arriving in the Indianapolis airport at roughly 9:45am. It was then that we had to wait until 11 before the bus taking us to Ball State University arrived. Once again I wasn’t complaining too much, it was extra time for me to find a somewhat comfortable (and available) couch to curl up on and sleep on but once 11 arrived we all filed out onto the bus/shuttle/whatever area and waited. And waited. And waited. Every bus that passed by we thought was The bus but of course, it wasn’t. It rolled in at about 11:30 where we gladly boarded. No matter how groady the seats were we just wanted to sit down and get to our rooms.

But of course, we had to wait for the others that we had to wait until 11 for. That person arrived about 10, maybe 15 minutes later. Yes, that’s right, the “people” we had to wait for turned out to be one person. By now I didn’t care whether it was one person or a hundred. I wanted to find a bed and sleep for the rest of my life. But the trip wasn’t even over yet. The woman who had greeted us when the bus pulled up to the curb stepped onto the sidewalk and decided to share a smoke with an elderly woman who just happened to be sitting nearby. That was another five or so minutes.

By that time everyone was starving. Lunch at the workshop was only for a few hours but we were all positive we had missed the deadline and would have to go hungry until five for dinner. That plus the fact the bus driver didn’t know how to work the air conditioning equaled us practically dying of a list of things.

Luckily, by the time we arrived, checked in, and dumped our stuff in our rooms we still managed to make it through the cafeteria and scarf down some food before joining everyone else in a nearby classroom for the end of a lecture on policy. You know, “don’t use copy-righted pictures because you might potentially get sued.” and of course “Don’t use Facebook pictures because the pictures on FB change the quality of the picture when it is added online.” You know, the usual.

Afterwards we got together, discussed what we wanted to happen this year on newspaper and then took a trip to the best computer lab I have ever seen. Seriously, rows of 20-something inch screen apple computers that completely blow your mind. The picture is amazing, its like watching HD-TV. I want to take one home with me. I’m hoping no one will notice one missing. They’ve definitely got enough.

So despite the fact that the morning started out sleepy and slow the day actually turned out to be pretty fantastic. I’m actually excited for what’s coming up next. I’m especially excited for Sunday considering we check out at noon and our plane doesn’t leave until 10 but I guess that’s a problem we’ll just deal with when we get there.

Stay classy, Firebirds.