So, how did it go?
Long story short: I did manage to get on TV. *applause sounds in the background*
But I figured a lot of you guys would enjoy hearing the more detailed story of what happened, so here’s that:
I suppose I should start by saying that I got hardly any sleep last night. I wasn’t even able to get back to my dorm room till like midnight, and I had to get up at 5AM to have any chance of being seen amongst the crowds. It’s worth mentioning that, while I’m used to going to bed around midnight, I also rarely need to get up before 8 due to my schedule, so I’m not exactly used to running off of this little sleep. Knowing this would happen, I made sure to prepare and buy a bottle of 5-hour energy a few days earlier. Now, I’m really not a caffeine-drinker. I think I’ve only had caffeine like once or twice before in my entire life. I don’t like the taste of coffee or the fizzy texture of soda, and I’ve never been keen on the idea of getting into the habit of drinking caffeine so much that I pretty much depend on it to wake up every morning, so, I really have no experience with/any tolerance for the stuff. But, given the fact that I knew I’d need to wake up fast, I got a bottle of caffeine that advertised that it didn’t come with a crash and that I figured would only leave a bad taste in my mouth for a few seconds.
Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to get out-the-door right away unless I could wake myself up quickly (as I would’ve needed to wake up at like 4:30 at the latest to get ready in time under normal circumstances), I wound up downing that bottle pretty much immediately after I woke up. The entire thing, not just half of it, despite it saying you should drink half a bottle for “moderate energy” and an entire bottle for “maximum energy”. Spoiler alert:
this was a bad idea. (Also, it tasted even worse than I expected it to. I’m glad I got that out of the way before I brushed my teeth.)
Anywho, it at least succeeded in getting me out-the-door on time. My breakfast was one and a half poptarts, which I ate during the walk over there. I originally planned to eat both of them, but I found myself strangely not hungry rather quickly and kind of forced myself to get as far as halfway through the second one, figuring I would need the calories.
So when I got to where the filming would be happening, my initial experience was essentially this:
I couldn’t see
anything and I kind of regretted not trying to show up earlier. I could only make educated guesses as to when any sort of filming was happening or even when Al Roker was simply present based on the cheering from everyone in front of me, at which point even the
sign I made which I held as high as possible over my head was always at least partially obscured by the signs others had made, as well as all the cell phones hoisted in the air in an attempt to snap a picture of any of the action, and I myself was of course not visible at all.
I noticed, though, that the longer I stayed, the more I saw people giving up trying to approach the front of the crowd and worming their way out to go home or w/e. So, whenever the opportunity arose, I inched my way forward and, slowly but surely, I did start to make my way closer to the front.
I should mention, however, that they weren’t filming for the entire 3-4 hours that I was around. In fact, there were several intervals of like 30-60 minutes during which Al Roker wasn’t even around, and we were all just waiting for him to come back so they could turn the cameras back on us again. During this time, while I continued to inch closer and closer to the front of a crowd of people all packed as tightly as sardines, I started to notice that I was breathing really heavily, and also that I was feeling kind of dizzy and almost a bit nauseous. Henry said I looked super pale, which wasn’t too surprising, given everything else. Since I’m not normally claustrophobic or anything, I attributed the systems to my lack of sleep coupled with the copious amount of caffeine I consumed earlier. And, since I noticed my progress in slowly getting closer to the front and I wasn’t in any mood to give up (plus I didn’t have any room to collapse even if I wanted to), I told myself that I’d be fine so long as I just kept taking really deep breaths. These symptoms kind of came and went throughout the morning.
By the time Al Roker came back for what we knew would be the final instance, I had actually managed to make it to almost the first row — and I could actually, clearly see not just Al but also the cameras pointed on him and even the small TV pointed back at him and us which displayed what was airing live, which I didn’t even know was there for most of the morning. When finally given the opportunity, I cheered and held up my sign and even got my face on TV for at least ~five seconds, but not for much longer, as Roker’s final segment was his shortest one, so being so close to the front didn’t mean much for very long.
Now, to many of you, this sounds like a tale of disappointment and unpleasantness, but, I don’t see it as such. Given everything I went through to get there, getting on TV felt a thousand times more accomplishing than I expected it to, even when I knew I might not be visible for very long. Because the point is
I did it, even if it took me until literally the last minute or so, and I feel like this little adventure made a fitting trial for my transition into legal adulthood.
So despite the fact that, not long after, I was in the dining hall, struggling to make myself eat anything substantial as I muttered “‘No 2:30 feeling’ my ass…” under my breath, and I felt like I’d kind of forgotten how to walk as I spent so long mostly standing in place and only taking baby steps when I did move, thus causing my legs to feel reeeeally weird when I left the crowd, I still considered the morning a success.
tl;dr — Best birthday ever.
