Prom: Epic win++?

There are some events that every high schooler is encouraged to go to (otherwise they won't get the ``full experience,'' I suppose), and one of them is prom. I had already skipped Junior Prom for ACSL All-Stars, which truly was a blast, from playing Super Smash Bros 64 on my MacBook Pro with an Xbox 360 controller and a Wiimote, to tricking the intermediate team into thinking that Sam, Kamran, and I got only a 5/40 on the programming questions because we were too busy playing Smash and Mario Kart. Unfortunately, the computer-oriented event that semi-overlapped with this year's Prom was Apple's WWDC, which would have cost me a whopping $1600, not including travel expenses. Being a cheapskate and super-conformist, my mom forced me to go to prom. Sucks.

My mom bought a dress in New York and I picked out a pair of relatively comfortable shoes at Macy's. Supplies: check.

A few days ago, the daughter of a class parent sent out a request for songs. Of course, having nothing better to do (as Bakura would say¹), I took a look at the spreadsheet and was disgusted by the overflowing barrage of twenty-first century pop songs. I then stealthily inserted the following songs:

• Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You up [classic]
• Erasure - Always [Robot Unicorn Attack song]
• Klein Four - Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)
• Littlekuriboh - Leather pants

Note: Julia beat me to Brooklyn Rage and also put a bunch of Beatles and '80s songs.

We figured that out of the three-hundred some songs, they would pick at least one of our songs. So we were content and felt very confident that this was going to be the most epic prom ever.

Then prom day came and I left school early to get hair done and other miscellaneous businesses. I took a shower, went to get my hair done, and did my nails. How atypical and troublesome. I left for Yumi's around 5:15, thinking that we would only take half an hour to get there (because GMaps said so), but there was tons of bad traffic, so we got there in an hour. Julia had already arrived and was comfortably situated on the couch, playing Fire Emblem (GBA) on her DS. She certainly came prepared. Then Alex Lam came, and he and Yumi put on their respective flowers (corsage and boutonnière, respectively). 

We went outside and took some pictures. I was surprised by the camera's post-processing in the Auto modes. The colors were vibrant and popped. This is a terrible conclusion; I just glanced at the images on the Rebel XT's 1.8" screen for 5s. I'd have to import them to my workstation and view them on my Dell Ultrasharp screen. I then took some pictures in the manumatic modes, but those weren't as vibrant. I'll have to look into that later.

Then we went to the Rockleigh Country Club for the actual event. We arrived pretty early, checked in, and got our pictures taken (yet again!) The photographers had Canon EOS 1D Mark IIIs with 24-70L lenses. I'm not sure if they were 1D or 1Ds; I just noticed the Mark III on the lower part of the camera body.

We got some appetizers and talked to other people. Julia sampled pretty much every offering, thus nearly filling herself before dinner XD Lots of people were amazed by my hairdo (insert Kemo² jokes here). We then went inside the ballroom to start eating and dancing. I got up and danced a little with Julia, Yumi, and Alex (more like, we held hands in a circle and rotated at a somewhat high rotational velocity). Sam and Patrick (super troller) sat at our table for most of the event.

Some things of note:

• Patrick was surprised that I was the one to put the Rickroll and RUA song on the song request spreadsheet. Actually, a lot of people were. (cue ``Oh, that was you?!'') In Data Structures, Rushdoony was like, ``If they play Always, I--I wouldn't know what to do O_O'' Anyway, Patrick said that I would be his hero if both songs were played. We requested Always, but it seemed like the DJ didn't have that song. Sadface T_T
• A lot of people were surprised that I brought transcripts of Brooklyn Rage, Leather Pants, and the first YGO:TAS episode in my purse. When the DJ played Bad Romance, Jordan, Julia, and I sang Leather Pants (parody of Bad Romance). That was awesome :D
• Quite a few piano geeks (Dan Abolafia, Beata Safari, Andy Wang, Andrew Kahn, and Sam Fingeret) played the piano in the main hall. The Rockleigh Staff didn't notice until 23:00, when he told the group to stop playing because they needed the piano in tune for the next day, when an invited guest would perform. Oblivious fail?
• Alex, Yumi, Julia, and I must have seemed really stupefied while we recited the YGO:TAS Episode 1 script. Alex Lam has a really squeaky voice o.o Also, Julia and I fail at singing Brooklyn Rage a cappella. XD
• Prom got really boring at 22:00, when the DJ played lots of songs I didn't know. I just sat at my table and watched Julia, who sat next to me, play Fire Emblem. Aside: I did get to play one game of Sudoku right before dinner! By 23:00, we all sat outside, occasionally asked for the time, and watched various people play piano without getting caught XD
• THE MUSIC WAS SO LOUD. My temporary hearing loss was amplified when I stepped outside of the ballroom.

It turns out that none of our troll songs were played (but lots of trite, pop songs were). Disappointed, we left prom with a face of disapproval.

I don't know what it would be like to not have gone; I know that I would be sitting at home working on Battleship (which still needs massive improvements by my standards). I guess I would have been more bored if I had stayed at home. Prom would have been better if I went with someone (*cough* Brian Hamrick), but I am grateful for the time I had.

Hey, at least I trolled the song request spreadsheet :)

Verdict: I paid $50 ($55 prom ticket - $5 lunch; price of uber fancy senior luncheon) to destroy my already-busted hearing.

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Footnotes
1: Bakura has nothing better to do when he was about to be dragged into Marik's quest to obtain Yami's Leather Pants.
2: Kemo always announces ``Attention Duelists! My hair ...'' when he wants to say something. Example: In episode 13, Kemo said ``Attention Duelists! My hair is definitely not leading you into a trap!'' when he lead Kaiba to Mokuba's jail cell.