Cont.

Day 2: Saturday

We awoke at 7:00, extreeeemely tired and not too jazzed. Got dressed, ate a cold piece of pineapple pizza (our food foraging skills are ingenious).



(Yes, that's my finger. I suck.)



In yet another perfectly perfect deal of fate's hand we managed to slide in to the panels with perfect timing, despite our lack of direction and time. I was on the Cool Cities panel for 3 sessions, sitting next to the representative from DC (who made deliciously snarky comments). Basically all day I sat in a room and told my story about high school organizing, and it was remarkably amazing. I was flattered that they wanted me for all 3 sessions, and to hear people say that my story was inspirational was pretty indescribable.

Enter serendipity #4. My group managed to all leave me on campus while they went to eat lunch, and I was wandering along the street, hoping to find food somewhere, when I ran into another good SSC friend. Upon introduction, her companion burst, "You're Ursula???" much to my surprise. I affirmed that I was indeed Ursula, and she offered to take me to lunch. We drove up and down Baltimore Ave, trying to find food, and finally had to settle for a weird little Chinese buffet. It ended up being cheap and filling, so whatever. I dashed into my last panel, trying to discretely eat lo mein...

After everything was over, we had to wander around again in search of food. PiC and I finally found a convenience store on campus, where we bought some pretty shady shwarmas and sandwiches and ran off to get a seat in the stadium for the show thingamabob. A bunch of speakers, some musical acts...and NANCY FREAKING PELOSI! She actually stumbled over her words a lot, but after a lot of chanting from the crowd, she started chanting along to the calls for "80 by 50" (referring to the amount of CO2 reductions required by 2050 to avoid reaching the tipping point), which was considered a symbol of her commitment to the cause. I don't really understand why people were left disappointed by what she said-- I thought it was just pretty awesome that she was there! The spoken word poetry later in the evening was also AMAZING. PiC and I already had a minor slam poetry obsession but to hear the national champions was so so so cool. There was a somewhat amusing rapper guy later...and then Van Jones!! He is a pretty really cool guy who pushes the platform of green jobs to pull impoverished people up to the middle class. Not only is he hilarious, he's really well spoken and passionate.

PiC and I decided, after much deliberation, to stay in DC with the rest of our old SPROG pals. I somehow managed to go to sleep amidst the raucous excitement in the house. This time I shared a pull out couch with 3 other girls. People were strewn about the house, on couches and the floor, under tables, everywhere.

I still have 2 days to write about, but I'm tired, and this all has taken 1.5 hours....I'll have to finish the rest in installments.