So here's where I explain everything that went down this weekend... If you want more in depth detail, I'm sure some of you do (haha) just ask, there was just too much that happened to include it all, and I mean, it's good to leave questions lingering and a person wanting more, right?


Friday was the day all of our roll call writing and rehearsing came to fruition and for the first time we had all of our delegation in one place to practice it; too bad we never did. We loaded into the van around 3 and finally left around 3:15-3:30. Now, Naperville isn't that far from where DePaul is so it only should've taken 45 min to an hour, the actual time ended up being an hour and a half due to traffic. So, we checked into the hotel and went to Portillo's in downtown Naperville before proceeding to Meiley-Swallow Theatre for Roll Call and the Opening Ceremonies. DePaul went second or third and we did surprisingly well; I had a lot of fun playing Mowgli. The other roll call's were great but I think EIU were the ones to end up winning it. That part of IRHA ended around 11pm and then there was entertainment available all around the campus and back at the hotel. DePaul's delegation chose to do the game show which was "So You Think You Remember the 5th Grade?," a knock-off of "So You Think You're Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" People actually could win up to 100$ for playing a stupid game with pretty easy answers. Shame, only Joe from DePaul won 12$ for being one of the students. It's all good though. After we went back to the hotel and the Hospitality Room where I proceeded to meet all kinds of people from around Illinois. I met a bunch of people from North-Central College (NCC), which were the ones hosting IRHA and I met Bailie from SIUE, whom I spent a lot of time with throughout the conference. After the Hospitality Room was closed Joe and I went to the room where the NCC people were staying and played card games, I can't say enough about how cool all the NCC people were, they definitely made the experience that much more worthwhile. We ended up going to bed somewhere between 3 and 3:30...

Saturday we had to wake up and be in the lobby around 7:10, which blew. We had breakfast at the White Activities Center and went over what programs we wanted to attend that day. Since we were a conference filled with student leaders who planned their own programs for residents, they brought them to IRHA to see if they could work in other school's. We also began handing out specially designed clothespins from each of the schools. The DePaul one would have DePaul written on it with IRHA '10, along with something attached to the top of it like a foam butterfly or paper cut out of a lion; these were a good way to meet new people from different schools by trading clothespins. There were four program sessions in succession so I went to a Competitive Poetry program, a Sex Education program called "Doing It in the Dark," a Diversity program called "Breaking Down the Wall," and finally "The Newly-Met Game" (Bailie was my partner but I lost us the game (Sorry about that Bailie)). From there we had Lunch and ate fine Chartwell's cuisine and handed out more clothespins. I met more people and got to talking with them which was nice. After, we went to the Spirit/Philanthropy program where we made cards for the Make A Wish Foundation and helped make blankets; this was fun because during the whole time people were cheering and taking pictures, it was just a good time. Then there was a Scavenger Hunt around Naperville, which DePaul ended up winning, and I got to talk and get to know the people from NCC a lot more (Did I mention how cool they were?). The top ten programs were selected during the Scavenger Hunt and we were given options on which one we wanted to go to and I went to the one that people from our delegation had set up, which talked about statistics helping to plan programs specific to the wants of the residents. It was about 4:00 then so our delegation went back to the hotel and did different things, some went to the pool, some sat and talked, and I watched The Bride of Chucky on Telemundo (funniest thing ever) and MythBusters with Joe. At 6:00 was the formal banquet and we ate at the hotel, getting all nice and dressed up, only for a second and then getting on our shirts and pants to go to the Awards Ceremony. DePaul ended up not winning Spirit Award and I was one of the most distraught out of the group. We had worked so hard and cheered our butts off the entire time, it was ridiculous, more than the winners I would venture to say (nothing against you UIC but you stole our award from under us). Well, after that there was a blacklight dance and while there wasn't so much blacklight, it still was a bunch of fun getting to let loose on the dance floor. I'm a major believer that one of my biggest strengths is not caring how much I make a fool of myself in any occasion, so, I was able to let my inhibitions go to the wind haha. I hung out with the people from NCC for a while and then we took the shuttle back to the hotel where I proceeded to answer numerous amounts of text messages trying to figure out what was going on after the dance. I ended up going to hang out in somebody's room, only for a little bit, and then hung out talking in the hallway for another hour. I don't think I got to sleep until 4 that morning.

You think I would have learned from the first night but we had to be up and out by 7:15, making the grand total of time slept just under 7 hours. It wasn't a long ride home but it felt like it because everyone was so tired and we had to stop to clean the van off with all our of our window writing on it. I got back around 9 and was texting a few people, avoiding doing my papers as best I could but I ended up doing a paper before 1pm. The rest of the day was hard to get through. Very tired I went to the RHC meeting and posted a sign on the wall where next year's spirit award will hang (yes, I'm calling you out UIC, you guys better bring it next year!) and got to sleep around 10, the earliest I've gone to sleep this entire quarter.

So here I am, a few days later, still feeling like I haven't recouped that amount of sleep and swamped with homework I didn't do this past weekend. Oh IRHA, you were too much fun. I really look forward to next year and maybe the possibility of being on the E-Board? I hope we can work that out, I want the challenge. I loved IRHA for everything but most importantly the fact I got to meet so many great people that I hope to keep in touch with throughout my entire undergraduate career and onward. I am truly a lucky person to have met and experienced the things I did at this conference, and I would've given a lot more than my voice, my time, and effort to IRHA for what it has given back to me.

WHO ARE, WHO ARE, WHO ARE WE? WE ARE, WE ARE, RHC!!!