Project Prom
- Story
This one's quite long, and everything is from
my point of view.
Leaving off where I ended in the intro, only
6 people were in this project: asy_9 billfu byris
charles shin sid. Some kowz weren't interested
(which really sucked). What was dumber to me,
some moms said the last prom should be taken most
seriously (I thought the exact opposite). Nr9
was sick (and stupid red eye). Benbry had a date.
Other people I asked were either disinterested
or restricted by a date. Man, I said if I were
to get a date, she would swa fei with me. It seemed
like girls took the prom even more seriously than
guys. The designer said some girl asked her to
make a prom dress that costed around 3000NT. Uh.
Man, I wore black jeans and a Kungfu shirt.
Billfu, Shin, and I left school after the sudden
deicision. At first we didn't think about robes.
Then we decided to get cloth to wear (simply cover
us with) at Di Hua. Took a bus there. The cloth
market was huge. We asked around and got referred
to this designer. Funny that nobody knew what
we were talking about: 'we wanna make jedi robes.'
Before us was 'Hei ren', that tall guy in entertainment
shows.
The lady was nice and she made clothes for pretty
famous people including Jolin, Jay Zhou, Wubai,
and others. She spent like 30 minutes with us,
and drew us a schematic for free. Our schematic
was a modified version of a doctor's operation
coat. We bought the cheapest cloth we could find
(50NT per meter).
We then walked around to look for pipes or pipe
substitutes (our only idea was, 'use glowsticks').
Di Hua is enormous, and we discovered it has everything.
We went to a hardware store (wu jin hang) and
asked for pipes. They didn't have suitable pipes
so we got referred to a water pipe store, where
we asked for hard pipes. It was already funny,
cuz we got referred from a general hardware specific
store to a water pipe specific store. They didn't
carry hard water pipes so we asked if they had
acryllic pipes. Then they referred us to an acryllic
store, hahaha!
We periodically called Byris, cuz he was responsible
for getting the glowsticks.
After buying everything, we taxi'd to Billfu's
house. He said he had 2 sewing machines so we
thought robes would be done in 30 minutes. He
couldn't find them, and we started hand-sewing,
which took forever. Super late (and not even done
with one), we decided to just cut up all the cloth.
I brought the cloth home cuz I have a sewing machine.
I had to learn how to use the machine. After
I did, the bobbin ran out of thread. I spent an
hour searching for internet sites that taught
you to do that! All fixed, I worked until 0200.
Woke up around 1000, and worked until 1400. Super
swang after all robes were done. I wore one around
before leaving, and when my dad just got home,
he said I looked like a jedi, hahaha! Then I taxi'd
to Billfu's house, where Billfu, Byris, and Shin
started the saber work.
We hand-sewed the holes in the robes and did
other length fixes and stuff. Realized the center
of the robe was open after we checked pictures
online, so we cut.
Nonstop work. Sid came late, and while he and
I finished fixing our robes, Shin, Byris, and
Billfu fit the badminton handles into the rods
with silicon and glue gun. We were 3 short. Asked
danchen, and he said his mom threw his 3 away.
Tomkit had 2 more. He was going to California
fitness center down ChungHsiao in the afternoon
(what the hell?) with mankit and bryan. So me
and Byris met him in the street while he was on
the taxi, and he gave us the 2 geshi. And what
the hell, the guys in the cab were in suits, and
had big fat flower sets.
Then me and Byris went to shihlin to get badminton
grips. When the clerk asked us why we had the
badminton handles, Byris said it looks good and
the clerk understood it as we display them as
souveniers, or spoils of victory. Haha, before
I kept saying people would think we're gangsters.
Billfu had one extra racket, which we ended up
breaking. It was not that bad of a waste, cuz
it was an old, shitty racket with a small crack
in the shaft. We started the glowstick work after
all rods were done (and seemingly dried).
We got a bunch of paper cups from downstairs.
On the test, byris cut a hole in a white glow
stick and poured it into a cup, then broke the
glass rod and combined the chemicals. Glowing
liquid. Then he put a blue one in... it didn't
turn blue... it become super bright white! We
were all amazed and really swang, cuz the sabers
would be super bright.
They started filling the first saber while I
went out to get new batteries for the one electric
saber, using laser. I also went to pick up charles,
who over icq that afternoon joined the project
(he said he was in for swa fei a lot earlier,
but we didn't talk any further until then).
When we got back, they turned off all the lights;
byris covered the first saber with cloth, swa
dramatic effect. Lifting off the cloth revealed
a column of superbright green light. It was awesome.
I can't describe how much excitement I felt...
it's an experience of a lifetime. 'This is gonna
be good.'
The bad thing was there were tiny air bubbles
coming out from the bottom. We didn't really know
what was happening. No time to figure or fix.
So we just left the top uncovered while we filled
the other 6 sabers. Then we sealed them all. Air
still leaked slowly, but it would last through
prom. We also couldn't get a complete seal onto
the rod, so we had to keep the rods all upright.
But anyway, good enough.
Kinda panicked. 40 minutes to prom, still things
undone, nobody ate dinner (Billfu ordered sandwiches
but everybody was working), and the room was a
mess. We started cleaning up and finishing up
the small things.
Countdown 30 minutes, sealed the last saber,
got our robes and waist bands sorted (waist bands
were long cloth strips left over from the robes;
we matched up the different colors so they stood
out but looked decent). Suddenly we had the issue
of hiding the rods. Shit! What was leftover of
the cloth was used to hide the glowing sabers.
At countdown 20, we left Billfu's place and taxi'd
to school and arrived on time... but hell, they
wouldn't open the gates... it took them like 30
minutes overtime for people to start getting in.
6 of us stood away from the waiting crowd to avoid
suspicion. At first we tried to hide the lightsabers
in our pants, and walk with them, stiff legged, but
it didn't work well. I looked like an absolute fool.
Dumbness at its best, Charles and I forgot our
tickets, so we had to wait outside for a long,
long time. I kept wondering what was going on
inside. Had a call, and they said they got passed
the teachers at the entrance. But there was no
place to hide the lightsabers and robes... so
they put everything into a bathroom stall, and
rotated people every 5 or so minutes to guard.
When Charles and I got in, we went rotating too,
which wasn't that bad, since we had 6 people --
2 shifts an hour. Time passed slowly as we waited.
Decided to bring them out after the first performances
(which wasn't the best decision... we should've
waited until the second performances, cuz there
were more people, but it was good enough... I
worried too much about the glow sticks going out).
23:30 or something, I forgot.
In fact my first plan was to raid out while the
junior breakdancers got their circle of audience.
But I learned that there's no breakdancing in
the prom. So I said we should raid the dancefloor
when people slow dance. But I was told people
would get pissed (sigh...).
These juniors in the bathroom once discovered
we were hiding something. They were annoying,
but we never told them what it was. Billfu and
Byris also talked to Mr. Ladd and this other teacher
(who organized the prom... Mr. Gabert or something)
before we got ready to make sure we wouldn't be
in big trouble. It really annoyed me that Ladd
and Evans were paranoid about a senior prank this
year. It already annoyed me that our class was
boring, blockheaded, and too grade-competitive.
Near the end of the first performances, we ran
into the bathroom, and quickly got changed; it
was super rushed. When the performing group ended
their singing, we walked single file and stood
in a line behind the crowd. I shouted 'may the
force be with you,' then we all said 'one day,
I will become the most strongest jedi ever.' Lame
star wars, but the prank was star wars anyway.
We walked out right after, leaving a small commotion
and confusion. But the stupid MC broke our plan;
'now they got the attention they wanted...' I
actually wanted more commotion than attention.
We took a bunch of photos in the gym. Some girls
borrowed our sabers for a picture. Mr. Ladd said
'I like.' The hype died down in less than an hour,
but I was pretty satisfied. But then the prom
got boring. All I could do, was walk around, eat,
drink, and take some more photos. (some people
tell me having a date makes it fun. Well frolic
was boring with a date. It's not the date's problem
-- it's the acitivity itself. It's just boring)
Anyway, the night went pretty well. I (I bet
we) made a lifetime experience. It was a great
memory left of the senior prom, and I know we
made that prom different from all others for many
others. Nobody had any regrets of joining the
project. [top]
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