...and we're crazy.

FINALLY the Abu Dhabi Film Festival is over.
I entered it with great anticipation for the exciting, interesting people I would meet around every corner. Not celebrities, but just people from exotic lands with strange life stories. Yeah, right. The first new person I met was a woman who I never really got the name of. All I know is she is from Cameroon and she is studying film in Abu Dhabi...for some reason. And did I mention that she's crazy? Oh yeah, she is. I was partnered with her during my first volunteer shift at the Filmmaker booth. What a night-- our job was to wait for a filmmaker to arrive, say, "Hello, who is your liaison?", and then summon that liaison by telephone or by walking around aimlessly. A tree could do this job as well as we could. And on top of that, during the entire four-hour long shift not a SINGLE filmmaker arrived. Here is a sample of the 1,500-word record of my thoughts that I typed on my phone during the four hours to occupy myself:

"Arab lady over there is speaking German now. She also speaks English, Arabic, Italian, and French; this is all I know about her. She is my role model. CCL [Crazy Cameroon Lady] is taking pictures of herself. She just said, "Oh God, I'm so crazy". Yes, I knew it. Sprichst du Deutsch? Wahrscheinlich sprichst du besser Deutsch als ich."

Day 2 of volunteering wasn't SO bad. I was partnered with Yannick, a fellow NYUAD student, and he had much more interesting things to talk about than CCL, like Esperanto and crazy college life. If you happen to be reading this, Yannick, thanks so much! Third day I was paired with Nikhil, from India. Another not very eventful day, except that I had a conversation with a British filmmaker who said she couldn't tell where I was from by my accent because it was so "gentle" (which I took as a very nice compliment). Briefly I thought that my accent might actually be changing here but now I realize it only happens when I spend a lot of time with non-American-accented people, like Nikhil. Maybe after four years these accents will accumulate to mar my perfect Minnesotan one. SMILEY FACE. Day 4 passed with no eventfulness, bringing a gloomy end to my time with the ADFF. Will I do it again next year? Only if I need to bring home another 6,000 words of delusional stream-of-conscious rambling.

Glitter on the Floor

I swear, I am going to experience all of the stereotypical "college experiences" before I even get through my first semester here.

Two weeks, clubbing, drinking, partying.

Let me put this in perspective. Just think of the movie Tangled - cutest movie alive. .. well .. it's not really alive, but you understand. I am the real life version of Rapunzel (bless you), minus the obnoxiously long hair, and creepy family situation. In high school I was locked in a tower of band kids, not doing anything out of the comfort zone. Our parties included Apples to Apples, frisbee, ice cream, the works. When I finally escaped from my tower, I felt the grass, the dirt. Holy buckets, I felt the grass, the dirt.

Clubbing: My roommates and I thought it would be fun to go out and go dancing and "have a good time". (I'm going to use code names, it'll make me feel cooler. My short roommate, who recently moved out, so she's not really my roommate anymore.. oh well, she shall be named Myrtle. My tall, still roommate, roommate shall be named Richardson). Myrtle has gone clubbing before and drove us to her favorite. Which happened to be the only club she's ever been to. We pulled up to this .. place. A bunch of sweaty old men were standing outside, with a cop for a bouncer. After we passed the intimidating officer we had to pay ten dollars to get in to the old house (just as a heads up, don't ever spend ten dollars to go to a club. that's a bad sign). I'll save you the sob story of creepy men attempting to dance with me. It was scary as .. a scary place. It felt like a middle school dance with drunk 30 year old men and chubby women in minimal clothing. Never again.

Partying: I baby sat Richardson.

Drinking: Nobody warned me how awful it would burn my nose. It is also very easy to trick drunk people. And very amusing. "I love you, Molly!" "No, I love Molly!" "I love Molly most!" Why thank you, Richardson, Giraffe, and Conformist (Giraffe and Conformist are my new party friends .. yay). But not all bad things came out of that night. I met some really nice girls. We bonded through our hipsterness. I sure hope you know what a Hipster is. I might have to make a whole new post about that, though. They are usually wearing Toms and scarves. That will get you through to my next post, yes? Yes.

I miss Connor.

Band kid party. Quelf. My tower. Molly, Anders, Connor. And the creeper ginger in the back is Tony.