my english class in my basement.

It occurs to me that I neglected to even mention the fact that most of my English class was in my basement! I’m sure you remember well the entry entitled a dance or my German class in my basement. You see, at that time, Meg and I had pretty much decided that it would be a great thing to have our English class in our basement too. Well, being the nerds that we are, we actually arranged to have a party at my house (specifically in my basement) with my English class.

I invited everyone over for Saturday, April 13 at 7pm. We were expecting a full turnout… at least we were hoping for one. How great would it be to have Glenn come to an English party? We knew that Lauren and Laura weren’t able to make it, but that was it. (As it turns out, Annie, Jaimie, Glenn, and Phil didn’t come either.)

So as Meg arrived a little early (as was planned), we were barely able to contain our ecstasy. Shannon was the next to arrive, quite fittingly. You see, Meg and Shannon are both members of that German class that was in my basement, and are probably the two people I’m closest to friend-wise in my English class. It was so adorable, because Shannon spent all day baking mini-cupcakes for us… wonderful. Carmen was the next to arrive, along with various food items, and her entire crate of records. You have to love Carmen. The next to arrive were both Anna and Kelly, also bringing food. (Food is great… everyone brought food.) Devin came (with more food), and then Tim and Chris came (with no food). Chris is another one of those German people. Anyway, we talked for awhile, and then we popped in the movie.

YEAH Blazing Saddles on DVD! The great thing about planning the party, was the fact that during English – the day I invited everyone – we kind of all decided that we wanted to watch Blazing Saddles. I’m not even sure who was the first to mention it, but it was such a great idea that I actually went out to Blockbuster and rented the darned thing. Of course, I have it on tape, but it’s on tape… and it’s edited. Auf jeden Fall, we watched the movie (which isn’t as funny unless you’re with your family, I think) and those of us in German got all excited about the German phrases (“Hast du gesehen in deine Leben?” “Schatz!”), while everyone tried to shut up Chris. Great fun.

After the movie we started to play Encore. Hello? How great is that? My English class… even the guys… playing Encore… in my basement. Encore, for those of you unfamiliar with the game, is basically a musical challenge between two teams. A word or a subject is read off of a card, and each team has a certain amount of time to sing 8 words of a song containing that exact word or the category. The first team to run out of songs for the particular word gives up the dice to the other team. It takes forever, and we ended up stopping after spending almost a half an hour on the word “you.”

Leigh and Mo finally arrived shortly after 10. We then broke out Balderdash, and eventually that game that Tim brought. What was that game? Na ja, we wanted Taboo, but Tim couldn’t find it. Meg left at around 12:30 – and most of the people followed her lead. Carmen, Devin, Shannon, Anna, and Kelly, however, stayed until 2 am. It was so great… seriously. We sat and talked, bonded, overanalyzed, whatever you want to call it for over an hour. Mom and Dad didn’t even care… they went to bad at 1 or so. I couldn’t believe it, but there was no way I was going to kick them out.

At any rate, there we have it – my English class in my basement. Meg, Jaimie, and I want to have a book club this summer. Jaimie has decided that no more than 10 of us are going to meet at Borders every Wednesday at noon. I think it’s a wonderful idea. It’s a way to stay in contact, have those great English discussions a little longer, and to get us all reading this summer. Perhaps I am really a nerd… a big one. But then again, so is everyone else.