The MP3 Experiment 9

Some of you may be aware that one of the top things on my bucket list is to be a part of a flash mob. Well, on Sunday, July 15th, I actually got to check that off! On Sunday, I went down to Manhattan, New York and caught a ferry over to Governor's Island to take part in the famous "MP3 Experiment" by Improv Everywhere. If you're not familiar with Improv Everywhere, just look at a few of their videos on their site (I recommend Grand Central Station Freeze).

It started with a 5 hour bus ride from D.C to New York. We were supposed to arrive in New York at 12:30, but instead we got there at 1:30 because our bus driver drove like a turtle (a Walmart 18-wheeler passed us.... that's how slow we were going). And what would New York be without a little traffic? Not gonna lie, but my first impression of New York was very stereotypical. People were literally honking car horns every 10 seconds! There wouldn't even be anything happening and someone would by laying on their horn and shouting obscenities out their window. Colleen said she even saw a guy get hit by a car because he was in the crosswalk when another car wanted to go. The intersections were kind of a free for all even though there were traffic lights, and I'm pretty sure the NYPD doesn't even bother ticketing drivers anymore. You really have to be born and raised in New York to drive there without getting killed.

When we finally got to New York and found the ferry to Governor's Island, we waited in line for over an hour just to get on the ferry. Thousands of people participate in the annual MP3 Experiment, but only a couple hundred fit on the ferry that comes every 30 minutes. I felt bad for the ferry staff. There was only one guy doing bag check, and the look on his face when someone told him there were 1,000 more people in line, was priceless. It got to the point where he wasn't even looking in the bags. He was just kind of letting people walk by him with their bags semi-opened. After all, every bag probably contained the same props; A white sheet, a soft toy, a hard flat object, a shower cap, a musical instrument, and a water gun. You know, normal stuff you'd bring on Governor's Island. Thankfully, we made it on the 3:00 ferry, and even though the flash mob started at 3, the ferry ride was short, so we only missed the first 10 minutes of it.

Now if you've never heard of the MP3 Experiment, I'll explain it here. Improv Everywhere is a NYC centralized group that puts on flash mobs all over New York. The MP3 experiment happens every summer in Manhattan. If you are part of their group, you get an email with the flash mob information like date, time, place, etc. As the date draws near, they post an 45 minute long MP3 on their website that you are supposed to download, but not listen to. Before the flash mob, you gather any necessary props they tell you to gather, and wear what they tell you to wear. On the day of, you gather in the said location, and at the set time everyone who knows about the flash mob and has the MP3 downloaded, presses play. The preceding 45 minutes are filled with crazy directions from the voice of "Omnipotent Steve".

I can't recreate the entire MP3, but I can tell you some of the crazy stuff we had to do. The MP3 usually  begins with the same stuff every year; Clap your hands, follow a stranger, give a stranger a high-five, have a dance party, fall on the ground and pretend to sleep. After all the "normal" directions, the fun with the props starts. The theme this year was Olympics (duh!) and every prop was associated with a different Olympic event.... for the most part. At one point we were running around with sheets on our heads and shoulders pretending to be ghosts and superheroes.

We were supposed to fly/float to the field in the center of the island to begin the olympic games. The first event was trampoline. We got into groups of 4 and took one sheet and held it tight. We then put our soft objects and put them on the "trampoline" and made them fly in the sky. Following that, we took our hard flat objects and built towers. I know this is a little scattered, but thats exactly how the MP3 was. We then had to put everything away and split into 2 groups. On one side of the field was the "color" nation (everyone who was wearing a colored shirt) and on the other side was the "monochrome" nation (everyone who was wearing black and white). 

I was on the color nation, and monochrome nation is on the far side.

We then took out our musical instruments and played our nation's national anthem, or as Omnipotent Steve said, "Whatever you can play that sounds like a nation anthem". We then proceeded to take part in the final event, the water gun fight! Omnipotent Steve made us all put on our shower caps so our headphones wouldn't get wet.

He then told us to raise our water guns and give our best battle cry, but before he told us to start the water gun fight, chaos broke loose. People were way too excited and were already squirting eachother. By the time Steve said go, most people had run out of water. It was still fun though!

At the end of the flash mob, we managed to run into Charlie Todd, the creator of Improv Everywhere, so we got a picture with him! He's basically a flash mob celebrity:)

All in all it was totally worth the turtle bus ride there, and the even worse bus ride back. I'm planning on doing it again next year, so if you're ever interested in joining me, let me know!

*Here's some pictures some Improv Everywhere people took. Enjoy!

Ms. Animal Teacher Lady

That's what I was known as to a bunch or 3-5 year olds at camp last week. Alison has too many syllables I guess, so they just go with Ms. Animal Teacher Lady. I'm cool with it though. It makes me happy to think that by telling them yes, spiders have 8 legs, I'm seen as a genius in their eyes and I must know everything about animals. Not only did they assume I knew the easy questions, but they also assumed I knew the answer to questions like, "What would happen if you fed a wolf that was on top of your house a whole pig, and then your house exploded?" I had to get creative.

So now, for all of you who have been asking, that is what I do at my job. I answer very, very, VERY hypothetical questions. I also hold snakes, touch spiders, and feed squirrels from my hand.* I am conquering my fears at last! If I can do all that, I think I can manage any thing else this job throws at me.

No, but in all reality I've been helping with things around the park like taking care of the animals, working with visitors, organizing papers, and making "pretty" fliers (since apparently guys can't make fliers "pretty").  Whenever work is slow, I make random sentences with the refrigerator magnets. One day of work consisted of kayaking, shooting arrows at a target, and running a transit of Venus program. Fun stuff! When the summer really gets rolling, I'll be doing more camps. One camp I'm doing is basically a chaotic week of helping 7 year olds make spears and bows and arrows out of anything they can find in the woods. The adult supervision besides me and the other intern? A man who wears deer skin and tells the children it's okay to eat bee larva. Character alert! I'm super excited for that week, though! I kinda love chaos, and so far, every staff member I've met has been beyond awesome. I already feel like a small part of their family, and I've only been working for 3 weeks. This will be a good summer, I can already tell:)

*Disclaimer: All of the animals at Riverbend are very friendly, so just because I am feeding squirrels doesn't mean I'm about to go befriend all the squirrels at JMU. Those squirrels throw acorns at you. Riverbend's do not. Big difference.

Carrier Cave People

If I had to compare college finals to something, it would probably be something along the lines of ‘Finals are like wearing a meat dress and being chased by a hungry lion.’ I don’t know why I chose that comparison. That’s just how it is. Three things happen to the students during finals week....

1) Students turn into cave people and become territorial over library spaces.

I think I’ve been spending more time in the library than I have in my dorm room this week. A typical finals day for me goes like this; wake up, go to Carrier, turn into a cave person while studying, eat, go back to dorm, sleep, repeat. Carrier library kinda looks like a cave, so it’s no surprise that students who enter Carrier turn into cave people like me. What is a Carrier cave person you ask? Well, let me explain

Normal student

Carrier cave student

The students begin to act like cave people too. They get all territorial over ‘their spot’ in the library. They either constantly leave their stuff around so no one will sit there, or they growl at you as you walk by to assert their dominance.

(Exaggeration)

2) Normal activities and thoughts are overtaken by what you’re studying.

Enough said.

3) You begin to lose all of your social communication skills.

Let's just say I'm ready for this week to be over.

Good Guys vs. Bad Guys

I don't know why I randomly had this idea to write this post. Probably because I was sick all weekend and had too much time on my hands. Or because I've totally had real conversations about this kind of thing before. Whatever the case, here goes. If I were to conquer/fight the world, I would want to have a few people to help me. I've made some Top 5 lists detailing who I would want on my team if I was fighting evil, and who I would want on my team if I was the evil.


Good Guys Team


5. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather (Sleeping Beauty)

They can turn arrows into flowers. That would probably come in handy. And Merryweather reminds me of Megan from Bridesmaids, and I love that movie.







4. Edmund Pevensie (Chronicles of Narnia)

Who else do you know can fight that well with 2 swords? And he's not bad on the eyes either....










3. Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)

She's smart and magical. She may be pushy at times, but at least I wouldn’t have to constantly stress about whether she’s about to go sneaking off into the dark forest to face Voldemort alone. 








2. Spock (Star Trek)

Three words: Vulcan nerve pinch. 











1. Indiana Jones (Indiana Jones)

He always manages to get out of trouble using only his whip, and he’s pretty freaking awesome in general. Come to think of it, Han Solo was pretty awesome too. Heck! I’ll just take Harrison Ford. With him, I would easily have the best theme music ever! And we both share a hatred of snakes. How fitting.

Now on to the "evil team". I know bad guys always lose because they have some tragic flaw, but pretending they weren’t overcome by that flaw, this is who I would want on my "evil team".

Bad Guys Team

5. Regina (Once Upon a Time)

She always seems to win, and she's really good at covering her tracks.

4. Yzma (Emperor's New Groove)

She has such wonderful ideas about how to get rid of people…. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cx7jzq2Bx4

3. Rasputin (Anastasia)

He’s already dead so you can’t kill him. If his arm falls off, he just pops it back in. That sounds pretty indestructible to me! And besides, every group needs some comic relief. I would make a few rules though. Like maybe cut your nails?

2. The White Witch (Chronicles of Narnia)

She’s the only bad guy I know who doesn’t wait to strike. "Oh, you want me to wait while you say your last words? FALSE! Wack!" She's also pretty good with 2 swords. I wonder what they teach them over there in Narnia....

  

1. Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter)

The fact that people are afraid to say his name should already tell you that he's an awesome bad guy. When people talk about Darth Vader, they just say "Oh, Darth Vader? Me and him, man, we go way back." You can't do that with ole' Voldy, or he'll probably kill you or something. He can do anything with or without his wand; Turn into a black smoke cloud, go inside your soul just to say "Dah!" (HP movie 5 reference), breathe fire snakes. He has an awesome laugh, and he kind of resembles a snake. Plus there's like 7 of him.








And a side note that I thought was worth mentioning....
People that would never be considered for any of my teams


1. Rose (Titanic)

I think we’re all still bitter about the whole “hogging the driftwood” thing.







2. Gilligan (Gilligan's Island)

He ruins every plan (90’s kids who watched the same T.V as their parents would understand)







3. Robin (Batman)

I found this little passage that sums up why Robin is kind of lame.
“It seems the person portraying Robin isn’t particularly important. Batman has had several different people in the Robin uniform including a female. But, you have to wonder at the true role Batman had in mind for Robin. The question comes to mind: Why has he has made Robin such an inviting target, brightly colored in red and yellow, while he struts around in dark blue, gray and black. I can almost hear Batman saying to Robin when approaching a dark alley, 'Looks dangerous, you go first!' and then silently to himself, 'I can always find more of you.'” Poor Robin. Just look at his face in this picture compared to Batman's. No thank you.


*All images came from Google. I do not own anything. The passage about Robin came from  http://www.toptenz.net/top-ten-sidekicks.php 

Flyer Chasing, Pure Nasties, and the JMU Zoo

So just as my title suggests, lately my mind has been all over the place. I can't wait for classes to end, but at the same time, I still have no idea what I'm doing for summer. Heck, I don't even know what I'm doing for the current week. I've been taking each hour as it comes, and barely thinking ahead in my week. I don't even really know what's going to happen with me this weekend. JMU knows, though. Or at least they try to keep telling me what's going to happen. On the Commons, there have been so many flyer people. It's ridiculous. They single you out and basically chase you down in order to give you a flyer about something you don't really care about, and they know you will throw away anyway. I've been trying to avoid the Commons every time I walk to class, but when I can't, this is what happens....

You'll be walking to class in a daze, and all of the sudden you find yourself on the Commons. You realize that there's no way out, so you do your best to avoid eye contact with the people with flyers.

But there's always that one person who is standing right in the middle, thus making it almost impossible to walk around her without walking all the way over to the guy who hands out Jesus bracelets and lectures you about the Gospel.

You try your best to avoid her, but she is like a hawk and immediately spots you. Her face lights up, and she has a flyer in hand at the ready.

This is when you are faced with 2 options.... Option 1: Do you take the flyer and risk letting other flyer people catch you and give you even more flyers? A single flyer is like a gateway drug. Once you take it, you will probably be given more flyers because people think you want to accept their flyers....

....Or you can go with option 2 and just hope that the flyer girl isn't faster than you.

After I survive the flyers for the day, I usually have to battle another mental war. You see, I have extra punches that I need to use since I've been going home on the weekends. I can't just let the 5 dollars go to waste, and the only place that really has anything other than food is Java City. I could go to Starbucks and spend my dining dollars on deliciousness.... 

.... but instead, I am obligated to use my 5 dollars worth of punch at Java City because they are the only place you can get coffee for a punch. But I wouldn't even call what they give me "coffee". It's more like sweet nastiness. Their coffee is waaayy too sweet, and there's always something gross at the bottom of the cup. It's like looking for a prize in a cereal box of pure liquid sugar, and then finding out that the prize is a soggy towel. I'm not even excited to use my punch there anymore. Instead of joyful deliciousness, I get to look forward to this....

But in all honesty, at least its "coffee" and it helps me stay awake.

Now, totally switching topics here, I've noticed that there have been a lot of tour groups at JMU recently. Most of the high schools are on spring break, and the seniors want to make a final decision about where they are going, so it seem s like they all come here. I don't mind the tour groups, but sometimes I feel like I'm a creature in a Zoo, and the tour groups are all the visitors. I'll just be walking to class....

.... And all of the sudden I hear....

I swear, it's really beginning to feel like I am a part of a Zoo, not a University. I can't wait for "Choices"....

Well if this post hasn't been too scatter-brained for you, I'm going to flip it again and say that that's all that's currently on my ADD mind, so I guess this is goodbye.

March Madness

No, not basketball, but I am calling Kentucky. But Wow! March is almost over and I haven’t posted since I tried out to be Abe! It’s weird because things haven’t really been crazy, but at the same time I feel like this month has just flown by in a blur. So many small things have been happening, so I guess this post is going to be pretty short. To be honest, I think I’m experiencing writers block: Blog edition. In all honesty I have no idea what I feel like writing about. Nothing that exciting happened to be this month. I turned 20, but big deal. Nothing is special about 20. It’s just society’s way of saying, “Oh look, you’re 20. You’re no longer a teenager, but you still haven’t reached the last big (youth) milestone of 21. Sucker! Have fun feeling old!” And that’s exactly how I feel…. Old. I’m twenty years old. Everything about that word just sounds old. My birthday was March 9^th, and the day after, I went with my youngest brother, David and my mom to go to visit my grandma at her nursing home. This is how some of it went….

Mom: Time to go!

Mom: Are you coming?

Me: I can’t.

Mom: What?

Me: I belong here.

Mom: What? Come on. We’re leaving.

Me: Don’t look at me. I’m all old and twenty-ish. I don’t want you to see me like this.

(If you think that I was offending the actual elderly residents, think again. 99% of them couldn’t hear a train 10 feet away…. Speaking of hearing loss and trains, I have a funny story about that. See below*)

Mom: Well, we’re leaving. Bye.

Of course I had to go, even though I felt like I was sneaking out of the nursing home. When the receptionist said “Bye” as we were walking out the door, I knew that “Bye” actually meant, “I see you trying to sneak out of here. You can’t fool anyone. You have twenty written all over you…. Old fart.”

But, before I slip too far back into a midlife, midlife crisis again, I’m going to take my mind off that and wrap this post up since I have writers block. Thanks for listening to my rant about being…. Twenty…. Ehhh.

* Random story about hearing loss and trains. A weird combination, I know, but a few summers ago, my family and my grandma went up to Michigan to visit my great aunt, Marge. Marge and my grandma (Grandma Francis Pickle… if you remember that post) are sisters. My grandma at the time was about 88 and Marge was about 90. To make things interesting, both of them can’t hear. I mean they can hear, but not very well at all. So, we walk into Marge’s house and this is how the conversation went

Dad: Hi Marge. We came to visit you, and we brought your sister.

Marge: What? You kids are always whispering. Speak up!

Dad: We came to visit you! And Francis is with us!

Grandma: Hi Marge! How have you been?

Marge: What? What about my oven?

Grandma: WHAT? I can’t hear you!

Marge: DID SOMEONE SAY SOMETHING ABOUT MY OVEN? NEVERMIND. OH, HI FRANCIS!

Grandma: (turning to my Mom) Is she talking to me? I can’t hear a thing.

Mom: That’s because you don’t have your hearing aid in.

Grandma: MARGE! SALLIE SAID YOU SHOULD PUT YOUR HEARING AID IN!

(At this point both of them are yelling because both of them forgot to put their hearing aids in)

Mom: No. I didn’t sa-

Marge: HOW DID YOU FOLKS GET HERE?

Dad: You two should probably stop yelli-

Marge: YOU TOOK A TRAIN? WHERE ARE THERE TRAINS AROUND HERE?

Dad: Nevermind then. WE DROVE HERE!

Marge: WHAT? WHICH TRAIN?

My brothers and I were laughing hysterically in the background as the yelling between the practically deaf sisters continued. My Dad tried to explain how we got here, but after 10 minutes, he just settled saying, “Yes Marge. We took a train.” And that’s how deafness and trains relate:) 

A Day Of Being Abe

My experience being a Racing President

Have you ever been to a Washington Nationals baseball game? Is your favorite part watching the bigheaded presidents race around the bases? Mine too. In fact, I decided to tryout to BE one of those racing presidents. Crazy. I know. But it was one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever done! I’ll take you through a day of being Abe.

After I had applied and sent in my cover letter and resume, I got invited back to audition. I thought “Why not? You don’t get many chances like this in your life time” I went to the Nationals stadium and met in the “visiting tem” clubhouse area. Tom Davis, the Nat’s entertainment manager, came over and explained what we would be doing for the tryouts, and then congratulated the 57 of us for being selected out of the hundreds that had applied. After that, we spent the majority of the time nervously waiting to be called, and interviewing with the media that was there. I was one of three girls who had made the callbacks, so naturally, the media was all over us. I lost count of how many interviews I did, but I think every media group there interviewed us at least once, if not more. They asked us questions like, “Are you nervous?”, Why did you sign up to do this?”, and “How did it feel running while in costume? Was it what you expected?”. All the media made the waiting period fly by, and next thing I knew, the three of us girls were called to be in the next heat.

Only three of the presidents are there at tryouts; Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. (Teddy, everyone’s favorite, is always touring during President’s Day weekend.) I got to be Abe. In the application, they warn you about the weight of the costume…. I mean, you DO have a really big head on. However, once they lowered the head over me, I wasn’t worried. I was expecting it to be much heavier than it was. I guess giving all my cousins piggyback rides really helped haha! It’s hard to explain what it felt like to be inside of Abe. You are basically wearing a backpack that has two metal bars coming up over your head that support the mascots head. As far as the rest of the costume goes, you are wearing semi-normal baseball clothes and a peach “neck” that goes over your head to seal the gap between your costume, and the mascots head. This made it virtually impossible to see. You could see through the “neck” piece just fine. What I couldn’t see past was Abe abnormally long chin/beard. This left you with a view of the ground two feet in front of you. So your view kind of looks like this…

While you are in costume, you have to do four things; sprint 40 meters, run the length of center field twice, dance, and do a victory pose. The dancing and the victory pose were easy…. The running was a little more difficult. Like I said before, the weight wasn’t bad. It was the distribution of the weight that made it hard. Basically all of the weight is on your shoulders and above your head. Its like your wearing a huge globe on your head. As you run and get your momentum going, your huge head starts to rock back and forth. This is where I had trouble. At the start of my 40-meter dash, the harness that was holding the weight of the head in place slipped up, and most of the weight shifted forward. I dove into a face-plant. It didn’t hurt (probably because of the adrenaline) and I got right back up and finished. In the video I posted below, you can actually see me falling and hear the loud “OOOOHHH!” from the spectators. (Thanks for capturing that on footage, espnW)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jOh7K0jZpE

(I fall at around 2:03 and interview at around 2:30)

More footage of me
(The first race they show in this video is my race... and the face-plant after that is also me. The reporters loved to get that on camera)

Sadly, that was not the only time a fell. After the 40-meter dash, we went over to run the length of center field twice. According to the other mascots and spectators, I was winning by a lot. By now, I had gotten used to the oddly distributed weight and figured out how to control it. The problem was, we had to make basically a 100-degree turn in order to get to the finish line. I was going pretty fast, and couldn’t really see much, so when the green wall came up in front of me, I had to make a very abrupt turn. I had also tilted my head backwards to see if I could see where exactly the finish line was. All this combined caused me to lose my balance at the very last part of the race. Only feet from the finish line, I face-planted again. As I got up to step over the finish line, the other two mascots had caught up and finished with me. Lame. I should’ve had that race. In the second race, we all finished together. Once I had gotten out of costume, I re-interviewed with a lot of the reporters. Apparently they like the action of a winning president falling at the last second. They asked me about how it felt to fall and if I was disappointed that I didn’t win. To be honest, I was there for the experience, so I answered most of their questions by saying, “I’m glad I got to experience every aspect of being a Racing President. Running, dancing…. eating dirt. Its all part of the experience!”

Needless to say, I didn’t get the job (not a surprise, since there was about 54 other “football type” guys there that made the running look like they weren’t even wearing a costume.) To be honest, I’m glad. I have NEVER been this sore in my life. Ever. I think I used muscles I didn’t even know I had. No, I KNOW I used muscles I didn’t even know I had. My muscles hurt, my bones hurt, my cells hurt, I have two bruises on my back, my palms are scratched from falling, and I think I pulled a leg muscle. I was only in that costume for like 15 minutes or so. As fun as it would be, I can’t imagine wearing it for a full day, 4 days a week. I think my body would just shatter. They would put the mascot head on me and I would just turn into dust and blown into someone’s eyes.

After all the waiting, the interviewing, the running, the falling, and the soreness the morning after, I look back and I’m glad I did it. I may even do it next year just for the fun of it. It was 114.7% worth it and now I can say, I was a ‘Washington Nationals Racing President’ for a day!

I may be posting more videos, or articles as they are created. Here’s the only one that’s up now. 

Article About Auditions
Photos