Elle Loughran: CTYI Day 7

Near half past midnight. I and many other commuters signed out for today when we didn't get our first choice of the Botanic Gardens (Bots) for the Sunday activity because, let's face it, we can - and then headed over to Bots where of course we were not to interact with any signed-in CTYI people. We walked through the gardens and saw Thomas, a previous Nevermore, with whom we sat down and had the chats for a bit. We is Jerry and I, by the way. His sister gave us a lift and is great.

Pretty soon a big circle of CTYI people congregated around us and we began playing an hours-long game of Paranoia, where you ask someone a question, the answer to which is the name of a person I the group. Someone then flips a coin and if it ones out heads the group gets to hear what the question was. It's amazing - people can be more daring that in Truth or Dare because there's always the chance people won't have to hear the question. There were some very interesting answers, quite illuminating.

My ukulele was very popular. It always travels around campus a lot when I bring it in and I just have to trust people will bring it back safely. The residential people and legitimate commuters left early enough and we stayed until 4, when Thomas, Mo, Katie, Aaron, Jerry and I walked to a restaurant. Thomas and I had some of Jerry and Katie's pizzas, and had some interesting chats on the way back to DCU.

We signed in around 17:36, then went up to res and had a corner party until it was time for activities. Some people came up with this awesome speaker-box setup. I had my first Dr. Pepper and had a lot of fun altogether. The RAs did do the whole 'stop being fire hazards' thing though.

We also chilled in the Quad, where I got this great photo of Philip, an ode to Lisa's from last year.

Around 7 we went to the Larkin and were put into groups for the CTYI world championships involving a range of varied challenges, including a spelling bee and a task to cheer up an RA. And strength/endurance, but I didn't take part in that one. Niamh and I:

I was really surprised by how few CTYIzens could spell. I didn't get asked a spelling, it was really sad and led to an existential crisis of sorts. 'Sad RA' was great, because Sandy and I took turns playing my ukulele and the whole group got behind us. Gillespie sang some pretty interesting rebel songs. Maeve and someone else said I was their aesthetic goal, that made me happy.

At the closing ceremony of the activity in the Larkin, the RAs asked if anyone had a ukulele. I thought they wanted one, so I ran down with mine - but no, I was supposed to play it. Quite the surprise. I was going to play Ho Hey but someone said Riptide so I did that despite never having played the full thing in my life. I made sure to bop and really enjoy myself there on stage in front of at least 500 people. When I glanced up halfway through most of the theatre was waving their arms, and at other times they clapped along. I almost slipped a chord in shock, it was wonderful. Lots of people high-fived me on the way back, I was very happy. An RA then wrote 'Thanks Ellie' on the board (various people, bless them, shouted 'There's no I in Elle!' to no avail) so after a minute I ran down the stairs from midway up, rubbed out the I with my finger and ran back up, high fiving as I went. So great.

The walk back to the Quad was really great. Jason was actually almost nice, and I got lots of compliments and hugs and stuff. Aaron got me to 'majestically' play Riptide from the Quad to the outside of DCU. I had a nice bus ride with Jerry and let me reiterate that he gives the best hugs.

Sorry about typos.

This is from the disco last night, in case I don't write a post about yesterday.