leaving and loving hollywood

I am sitting in LAX completely overwhelmed that it's all over. I didn't cry a lot. Mostly this morning when I had to say goodbye to Sarah and my roommates. And of course now as I am typing this. Great. Nothing like crying in public. These last couple of days have been AMAZING. I could have easily have made this semester into a yearlong thing. I feel like I've just started to get to know people and now I have to leave them. And let's be honest – some of them I will never see again. I have learned so much and grown so much as a person and discovered so much about myself.
So I should go back to the Price is Right. 21 of us decided to brave the early hours and went in line for the Price is Right at 4:00 in the morning on Tuesday. What followed was a very long process of actually getting seats in the audience. The gates opened to the CBS lot at 6:00AM at which time we got a Order of Arrival pass.. I was number 66. We were told to come back at 7:30, so we left and I went home and took a shower. We all met up again at 7:30 where we got another ticket. This ticket gave us a spot in the line that gets actual tickets. We were told to come back at 10:30. So we walked around the grove until then. When we got back, we then sat on benches until we got our nametag (the cool Price is Right nametag!!) and had to fill out some info about ourselves. Then we waited in line some more (by this point it's around 1:30) until finally they called us up in groups to be interviewed. The interview is to see what kind of personalities they have in the audience and they pick the people that go on the show based on your interview. The guy interviewing us knew that we were all from a school, so he asked where we were from and what's our major. Except for me. When he gets to me he asks “what do you do?” This threw me off guard. A bit earlier we had been talking about our hobbies.. and so the first thing that comes to my head is: “I sit in my room and collect pop cans” -- oh my gosh – how pathetic!! :) He told me that that was kind of sad and I agreed with him. Then I told him that I study school as well, but thought that that sounded like I study the subject of school and so I told him that I don't do that generally, but specifically... and he told me that he'd take my word for it. That, my friends, apparently gets you on the Price is Right as a contestant. We sat in our seats and the show started and it was soooo exciting! The stage is a lot smaller than I ever thought it would be.... it's so tiny!! Bob Barker is Bob Barker.. so awesome. So yeah, the show is totally intense. We had a big group.... so we were pretty hopeful that someone would get picked, but the show kept going and no one did..... so it gets to the last contestant to be called down. And Bob cues the announcer dude.. and he's like.. “Stephanie El...gersma.. come on down!!!!” OH MY GOSH!!!! I totally freaked out. Even writing this I'm inwardly freaking out. Such a rush I'm telling you. So I race on down to contestant's row.. and I am shaking and I don't know what to do. So crazy. And immediately they are showing us the thing that we're bidding on and I didn't know where to look or know what the heck it was because I only saw the girl hitting the tennis balls and didn't really see the machine that was throwing them. And then Bob is turning to me and saying “Stephanie, what do you bid?” Oh my GOSH. So I guessed “1000 dollars”. I was wrong – it was 825. But that's okay because it was TOTALLY FUN. And I got a vacuum cleaner and two watches!!!! Yippee!! January 25 people.
And now I'm here in the airport and we're going to board in 15 minutes. Tuesday we had our premiere screenings of our films. My film went so well. It was the last one to show... which people told me means that it's the profs' favourite pick. And I got a lot of compliments on it..... I mean, I just wrote it, the whole crew did all the work, but it was very gratifying to watch it with people who had never seen it before and know that they are laughing and enjoying something that came out of my brain – with the help of the Big Man Upstairs of course. Everyone looked so beautiful and it was truly a fun evening. Then Wednesday we had our final banquet – the last hurrah where we're all together. We had it at Callendar's, which is apparently a pretty well known restaurant in the US. It was really good food.... so good that I definitely couldn't finish it. But what else is new. :) It was a good evening, in which we got our certificates and could say a little something to the group. Course when I got up there I had no clue what to say.... so I floundered around a little. It was so weird to be thinking that this was the last time we'd all be together. I got emotional when saying goodbye to my friend Bekah because she was leaving the next morning.. but for everyone else it seemed so surreal. Then yesterday I spent the day packing and cleaning. I also hung out with my friend Geoff... he drove me up this mountain and onto this private road and showed me the most spectacular view of Los Angeles. It was such a fitting way to end my semester here. It was stunning – lights sparkling as far as you can see. I took some pictures but they don't do them any sort of justice.
And now it's back to reality. I hate reality at this moment.