Friday
Of course, first there was a day of school to struggle through. However, there was one thing cool about it: it was an A day just like two years ago, when the Friday of Ushicon 1 was an A day. So I kept thinking about that throughout the day *sniff*
Then after school I drove to Eryn's, Mom drove Bekah over, and we loaded all our stuff in the van Eryn's mom rented (Eryn's mom was way nice for taking us! We could have driven ourselves, technically, but our parents didn't really trust us to drive ourselves, and I know I didn't trust myself, due to my slight highway phobia ^^). After that, we were off to Austin! The van had a DVD PLAYER (yeaah) so we watched A Midsummer Night's Dream, which made me very happy because it's my favorite Shakespeare play and I'd been wanting to see the movie for a long time. And it was quite good! Yay.
Anyway, we didn't get to the Mariott until 7 ish, which was too late to make the Koda Kumi concert! Cause we didn't have our badges, and registration had already closed. ;_; waii. But anyway, after we got there Eryn and I went in to check in, and ahh. It was so nice to walk in and be back among people as dorky as you. *sniff* Of course, the first person we saw was Zack! 
Just like last year. After we retrieved our stuff from the van, he went up to our room with us to drop it off. We stayed there for awhile, and Zack somehow coerced us all into giving him a massage. First he got individual massages from each of us, then at some point he had all three of us around him. There is a picture of this. He is such a manwho'e. *shakes head*
Then we went to walk around downstairs, where we found Shin K, and perhaps wandered around a bit before going back up to the room. Shin K came up with the brilliant idea of pushing our two beds together to make one huge SUPER BED!! We moved the nightstand to the side and pushed one bed right next to the other. It was AWESOME. Totally solved the problem of who's-on-what-bed (which was always a source of angst for me, since I invariably end up on the worse bed), and we will DEFINITELY be doing it at all future cons. At A-Kon, we're going to have two queen beds, so it's going to be like a KING AND A HALF. Oh man!
So we were all lying about on the super bed, and all these people kept calling Zack's cell phone. And he'd pick up, and talk to them, and they'd ask him where he was. He'd tell them our hotel room number, and without warning they'd be all, "Okay, I'm coming up" and hang up. And this happened quite a few times. So pretty soon there were like 10 people, most of whom we didn't know, just.. chilling in our room. And I am sad to say that they brought alcohol and pot. Or "oregano" as they called it... I was getting kind of annoyed (although all the dude-talk was amusing me--Shin K even said "smokin' the ganj" XD) so I was glad when they left. Afterwards me and Eryn decided we needed to make up a code word for danger! Well, not danger, just situations in which one of us would like out of. I can't tell you the code word here (shhh) but it's very amusing. "Dude, I hate fishing!" XD
Then.. I dunno. Damn, why can't I remember? Friday is such a blur. But I think this was when we had fun on the super bed. After Zack and his friends left, we tried to make burritos with the covers.. using ourselves as the ingredients XD We also did wiggling.. "wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle".. it was crazy. After that, I think that was when Bekah and I went downstairs and tried to get into the Koda Kumi concert. It was kind of complicated, since we still had no badges, and had to ask the lady at the registration desk to confirm that we were indeed on the pre-reg list. 
But we got in! And we caught her final song, "Real Emotion." It was so cool to see it performed. Soooo cool. And they didn't have stupid chairs like at the move concert. I really wished I'd caught all of it. Sniff. Afterwards we waited in the autograph line for awhile, but when it had been 20 minutes and she still wasn't there, Bekah and I decided to just get autographs tomorrow. Alas, we would not get them tomorrow, or ever!
Then there was probably some more wandering, before finally going to bed. There was some manwiching on the super bed XD I was on the right end, with Eryn next to me, Shin K next to her, Bekah next to him, and Zack next to her (on the "crusty edge of the bed" as he called it XD). Heee super bed.
Saturday
Woke up, eventually dragged ourselves out of bed. I showered and went down to get my badge and take pictures of cosplayers. Ahh, new camera, I <3 you. I <3 the Mariott lobby, too, for being so well-lit and pretty. So I wandered around by myself for awhile, until I found Ash and dragged her to the dealer's room with me. I saw some stuff I wanted but had no money so I had to wait to buy it. Then I found Eryn, and we walked around on the upper level looking at fox tails and the artists' alley. We were idly flipping through some girl's portfolio when we found H/D ART!!!!11 It's a print of a picture the artist-girl drew of Harry and Draco through the years, fighting and all, except in seventh year they're holding hands and then it says "The result?" and it's them making out. I TOTALLY BOUGHT A PRINT! Eryn bought one too. We are soooo cool. XDD
Then I went up to get my money and came back down to hit up the dealer's room. I got:
Kare Kano 6 (for $8 baby oh yeah)
Kare Kano 7
Fruits Basket playing cards
Hmm, what then.. found Kat and Stephen (who are now dating) and some other people. And then I may have gone off wandering by myself again, and in the game room I discovered that someone had set up Para Para with the sensor thingies, a PS2, and a TV! So I played one song :D. Then I made Eryn come outside with me so I could scope out the photography opportunities (I had a photojournalism assignment due next week, so I'd brought my Pentax manual camera to use up the black & white film that was on it). It's such a pretty area with the creek and bridge and everything. I got some good pictures on the digital camera, and then came back inside. I wanted Kat to come be my model for the black & white pictures, but she was tired and wanted to lounge in the lobby, so Steph and I walked around taking pictures of cosplayers, and I also played another three songs of Para Para in the game room (this is where I recognized one of my LJ friends! She played Para Para after me, and I thought she looked really familiar. But I didn't want to ask if it was her because it's embarrassing if you're wrong--but it turns it that it was her! Ah well, I might catch her at A-Kon).
After I went up to the room and got the manual camera, I came back down and told Kat she could sleep in our room after the pictures, and made her come outside and be my model :D. Some of the pictures I took on both cameras (just in case), and all of them turned out really cool, but the ones on the digital camera (which I set in black & white so it would be like the manual one) are definitely the best. Kat is a wonderful model; I hardly had to tell her how to pose. She would just pose herself, yet still manage to look all dramatic, for a great effect. <3 <3 Yay Kat.
Then, as promised, we all went up to the room to take a bit of a nap. We let Kat and Stephen fall asleep on our super bed but we made sure they knew the rule--NO SEX. Which led to a really insane conversation that I don't particularly want to think about, thank you. Etc etc, then there was some general wandering until Eryn's mom brought us pizza and we went up to our room to eat it. When we went downstairs, cosplay was going on, and then dance set-up, so it was reaaally boring, and Eryn, Steph, Bekah and I all sat on the stairs bored out of our minds. At this point I was afraid it was going to be like Saturday night at Ushicon 2 all over again--meaning, super-sucky. However, it turned out to be quite the opposite.
So we went up to our room and Eryn and Steph tried to convince me to wear my slut shirt, which is this peach-colored lace shirt has ribbon lacing up over the boobs. But I only like to wear that with Ashley's Miyabi pimp jacket, which I think she took apart, sigh. Otherwise I'm just waaayy too self-conscious. So their attempts to get me to go downstairs in that shirt failed. But whatever. I was much, much more comfortable in the black sleeveless shirt I ended up wearing. :DDD *insert love for the shirt!*
So we went downstairs, and I went into the dance. Steph and Eryn were having a badge dilemma (Steph didn't have one, so she couldn't get into the dance yet) and I wanted to dance, so I just went in by myself. In retrospect, a v. good decision on my part, because I had a lot of fun dancing alone. It's so much easier to let go completely when no one is watching. And I did let go. I totally jammed, Animefest 2002-style, and who cares if I looked stupid or not, because no one I knew was there. And the music was excellent, mostly because the music is always the best at the beginning of the dance anyway.
When I tired myself out and went to get a drink of water, I found Eryn, Steph, and Bekah outside, who all came back into the dance with me. Eryn and Steph promptly went to sit on the chairs lining the sides, but Bekah followed me onto the floor. I think I pissed her off here, because I kept trying to dance by myself like I had before, but she wanted to dance facing me. I wanted to let go again, but it's a lot harder to do with someone you know right next to you and in your line of vision. I didn't mind her presence on the floor, but I didn't want her right next to me. So I tried to convey that to her, but it was too loud for her to really hear what I was saying beyond angry-looking yelling, so I'm fairly sure she took offense at that and eventually left the dance. It's selfish of me to admit it, but I didn't care. If you intrude upon my solitude, you get burned, I'm sorry.
And I did have a lot of fun dancing by myself again. The music wasn't as good as it was before, but some people started a limbo dance, and these guys began throwing balloons in the air for the dancers would try to keep aloft, and I joined in. When I eventually stopped dancing and looked back, Eryn and Steph were gone too. That was when Kat showed up in front of me, and I hugged her, but I couldn't hear what she was saying so we went outside to talk. I told her I'd be right back and took the opportunity to go up and drop off my camera in my room (and also put on some deodorant--I'm sure I was rank with fangirl by that time). But when I came back down, she was gone!
I found Eryn, Steph, Bekah (all looking quite angsty) and a few other people sitting by the pillar (the place in the lobby where we usually sat). At some point Steph and Eryn left, and I thought they were going up to the room, but as I discovered when I looked up, they were just going up to the floor above to gawk at everyone from the balcony. So I decided to sneak up on them--not by climbing the stairs, because then they'd see me coming. No, I waited for an elevator, got on, rode it one floor up, and it let me off directly behind them. I rushed Steph from behind. It was so much fun XD *dork!*
During this time, everyone had been looking for Kat because she'd been missing for awhile. It turned out she'd just been browsing the art show, so once Zack told us that she'd been found, the three of us went back downstairs. For some reason, Stephen, Kat, Kerry, Sam, Bekah and I all sat down in this hallway, and while they were talking about random stuff I started thinking about school, and next week, and how much hell it was going to be, and how I couldn't do anything to help my situation because I was down here in Austin. And I'm sad to say that just thinking about that made tears come to my eyes (it may have been the hormones of the month flooding my veins, but it was also the thought of the oncoming stress that pushed me over the edge). Then Kerry asked if I was all right, and I turned to them, my eyes a little blurry, and said yeah, I was fine, but that just made me feel like crying even more. So I turned away from them again and was biting my arm trying not to cry, when Kat finally pulled me back and put her arms around me and told me that it was all right, I could cry.
;______; Makes me emotional all over again thinking about how.. unbelievably kind of her it was. None of my friends have ever let me cry on their shoulders. I'm either too stubborn to let myself cry in front of others, or I don't really have a friend that I'm that comfortable with. So anyway.. I finally let the tears come, even though it was the STUPIDEST reason ever to be crying, and I'm sure most of the people around me thought it was because of con drama or something someone had done here. But no, it was none of those things. It was SCHOOL. How SAD.
But Kerry and Sam came over too, and they were all comforting me, telling me about how their weeks were going to be hell too; apparently Sam has a lot of design projects to do, and Kat has tons of homework, and Kerry hasn't taken the SATs yet (he's a senior too, and only 17!!! WTF, I'm older than him!! I always, ALWAYS thought he was at least a year or two older). Then Kerry told this story that was pretty funny, and basically made me stop crying because I had to laugh. Then Sam was talking about her AP art test projects from last year, and Kat's vocal audition, and it just made me feel so much better.. *sighs, smiles* Sometimes.. I'm just struck by.. how nice some people really are. It's usually me who has to make my own kindness. But this.. this... *speechless* I can't even describe it. It was.. so nice... thank you all.. so much...
Then Stephen, Kat, Sam, and Stephen's raver friend Derek (but not Kerry cause he has a curfew! He's 17! wtf!!) said they were going to go drink some Bailey's Irish Cream, and I decided to go with them, because 1) I really had nothing better to do, 2) I didn't want to go to bed yet, and 3) I wanted to taste Bailey's. They all assured me that it's just a drink you sip like coffee, and that I wouldn't get drunk or anything. So we got the Bailey's from Sam's room, brought it down to a table by the pool and poured it into plastic cups we stole from the water tables. Bailey's is pretty good, but mostly just the aftertaste. I really had to learn how to drink it, because if you try to gulp it, the alcohol burns your throat and it's not a very pleasant feeling. Oh, but then you get the niiice aftertaste, all caramel-like and warm. Mmm. I didn't have a lot, though, so don't worry about Boozed-up!Sarah. :P
Then it was getting to be too cold outside, so we brought it inside, to the table and chairs outside the hotel restaurant. Then we sat and talked for awhile, about all sorts of really cool things. I learned that Sam is Scottish, and she just moved to the U.S. two years ago. She wanted to hear what accents from all over the U.S. sounded like, so Stephen and Derek were imitating them, and it was amusing. Then when Sam started talking about Scottish accents and imitating their equivalent of gangsters over there, her own accent came back, and it was really cool to hear. Then they were discussing the difference between Irish and Scottish accents, and other international stuff, and it was (again) really cool. I was dead tired but I stayed up just to listen to the conversation.
Eventually I did go to bed, though. Eryn was already asleep, and like RIGHT after I'd gotten into bed and was about to fall asleep, everyone else starting coming in. Shin K came up, and got in on Eryn's other side, and Zack next to me, and Bekah next to him. Zack put his arms around both of us and was so pimped out ~_~;; We didn't even get to sleep for awhile cause we were all talking about insane things. I don't even remember what it was, but.. ah well. Oh yeah, and Kat and Stephen came in a bit later. Kat collapsed in between me and Eryn, and Stephen passed out on the floor (o_O he could have just slept on Shin K's other side...). So we were all wedged in together on the bed.. it was so warm! It's cold sleeping all alone. ;_;
Sunday
Yarr, no one wanted to get up. I made myself, though, and then Eryn and I went down to the dealer's room. Someone had snatched up the Tokyo Mew Mew 5 I wanted to get, so I got a Zakuro plushie (they were all out of Ichigo!) and a CCS Kero & Supi cellphone strap instead. The plushie was way too damn expensive, $25, but eh.. and the cellphone strap, well, I don't even HAVE a cell phone XD But it's sooo cute, and I figure I can put it on other stuff until I get one of my own. Hee.
Oh, and as for this report's little quote, that's because Zack had another hickey on his neck, just like last year. And when we noticed it last year, we'd asked him what it was and he'd told us he'd been hit by a golf ball (XD). When we asked him what this year's hickey was, he also told us he'd been hit by a golf ball. I reminded him that he'd said the same thing last year, he said, "Well, I'm a golfer." XDD It was sooo amusing. Maybe more so if you were there. :P
Anyway, then we dragged all our friggin stuff DOWN THE STAIRS because there was a huge elevator line, put it in the van, and went back home. Yay.
I don't regret going... but Saturday was probably the only day that I enjoyed more or less fully. That's what really made it all worth it: getting to take lots of cool pictures with my new camera and, of course, Saturday night. This con couldn't beat A-Kon 14 or even Ushicon 1, but just for those few things I'm glad I went.