Rotary District Conference- Part Two

For part one, see yesterday, for parts three through ___, see tomorrow.

Friday, we woke up and, for a time, the house echoed with the sounds of girls showering, blow drying, make-uping, eating, and whining about the polos we were expected to wear- some of which came down to the knees of their unfortunate wearers. Finally, we piled into the car and drove back to the conference center, where we sat in the dungeon until called forth into the meeting. We were paraded across the stage with the flags of our respective countries, then sat through several hours of Rotarians telling other Rotarians how great Rotary is. We were finally released back into the dungeon for an hour or so before lunch.

"One student to a table," they said. I found a table to myself near the corner just in time for the doors to open and the room to flood with hungry Rotarians. I ended up between a man from India and some guy named Bill. Throughout the meal, Bill would occasionally go on a tirade about the political party he was planning to set up to revolutionize the world, using Rotary both to promote his system and as a model for the way things would be run. Since I was being paid, essentially, to make a good impression, I sat and listened politely, nodding and making listening noises occasionally. Since I felt as though I had done noting but eat all weekend (even though it was only Friday,) I only ate about 2/3 of the food offered. During desert, some terribly important guy from Thailand came up and spoke for a very long time. All the while, the remaining 1/3 of my cake was sitting on the table (on a plate, obviously. They were at least that classy) tempting me.

After lunch, we were permitted to go back into the dungeon and change back into real-people clothes before setting off for a nearby bowling alley, where I played a couple of frames, getting steadily worse as the afternoon wore on. We eventually returned to the conference for "talent show rehearsal". In other words, we sat around in the dungeon for a very long time.

We finally were driven back to the house, where we ate a nice meal and sat around talking about different countries' attitude toward nudity, which lead to several embarrassing stories. Before you ask, I have no idea how the topic came up. Ultimately, after some ice cream, we slept.