Do I have the honor of telling the epic story of my Odyssey to and through Boston?

So. Harvard-Yale game today. The morning buses leave Yale at 7:30. I have stupidly deprived myself of sleep all week and, save for a two hour nap yesterday afternoon, ran a movie marathon last night and didn't get to bed till 4:30. I wake up to my alarm at 6:30.

[I have no idea what happened in between]

I wake up again at 8:00. I spend fifteen minutes staring at the clock and despairing. I do not have the heart to call a Harvardian to let them know I can't make it. In utter despair, with no agenda whatsoever, I go out.

And it turns out: there's a bus that hasn't left yet! Apparently they have this bus every year for sad cases like mine. This year, I was the only sad case. The only people in the entire bus are the driver and myself.

Two and a half hours later, I am dropped off in the saddest edge of Harvard's campus, just where Harvard ends and Cambridge begins. Alternating phone calls between Olga and Kevin (a really really good friend of mine from Manila) and feeling really really lost I walk down this one street against the flood of people flocking towards the stadium, and I somehow spot Olga, scream, jump on her and nearly knock her to the floor, and give both Olga and her boyfriend James a terrible scare. Bryan and my friend Kevin joins us later, and after lunch amidst the crowd of Those People Who Are Actually There To Watch The Football, we meet up with Eunice and Adam. Lots of screaming and hugging and jumping up and down - I believe I've been compared to a catapult. (why??)

And then we all went to Olga's room to enjoy the pies she and Eunice made the night before: banana cream pie and Creative and Mysterious pie; both were absolutely heavenly. And looked through Adam's TASP photo album and awwwed over how young we looked and how much we missed all of you. Then we cursed Alex and Adrian for not making it and bickered over who gets to take Jacob after he gets out of Nevada. (I was a bit outnumbered.)

Wow. Post getting too long. So. Adam had to leave, and Olga had to catch the second half of the game, so Bryan, Eunice, and Kevin toured me through their rooms, and sometime during the tour I realized that I left my phone in Olga's room, and then we had cheesecake at a cafe. Susan joined us here.

The panic that followed: my phone was still in Olga's room. Bryan gallantly went to go find it (and Olga, who would let him in). [thank you Bryan!!!] I was supposed to be back on the other side of campus at 4:30. Bryan calls to say he's on his way, and we wait. It looked like it was 4:20, and we wanted to have a picture taken. Susan goes off to buy a camera. Susan calls, saying that it's 4:30. Eunice turns to me with one word: "run."

Kevin and I run while Eunice waits for Susan. We're about to cross the river (the halfwaypoint of the distance, I guess), maneuvering through the flood of people coming back from the stadium. Suddenly Olga's boyfriend appears out of nowhere and hands me my phone. And then Eunice joins us. We marvel over how lucky I am. Bryan comes running, and we're all panting but happy that I at least get to say proper goodbyes to them before I go. Someone suggests that the scenario be made into a movie. We settle for blog post.

We reach the remaining buses that haven't left yet. Standing conspicuously in the middle of the parking lot (so that we'll know if they try to leave without me), we talk about how we have to meet up again, and soon. Then hug mushily. And then talk about how ALL of us taspers have to meet up again, and soon. And hug again. Then Olga and Susan show up (considering how far they've run to get here, Olga is almost disappointed that the buses didn't abandon me: "So wait, was the whole 4:30 thing a lie?") and we take a group picture. Susan suggests that we all show our TASP shirts in the picture but that plan fails because only she and Olga remembered to wear them today. But I'm sure it's a gorgeous photo nevertheless.

Then I get on the bus and miss you guys all over again. The end.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [4:56 PM]

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