still Wichita...

what a mess...jumbled up all the time of events. now it's in the right order, but still the time which the posts were posted is incorrect. nevermind though...

the third day was an eventful day (unfortunate ones mostly). like yesterday, we were fetched to the WSU. everyone seemed to be feeling nervous because of the impending competition. i myself was quite worried too, for i felt that i had not enough preperation. being unable to present out what i had memorized was my main concern.

when we reached the university, we were divided into 5 groups (8 ppl each). in my small group, i was lucky enough to be the 6th one to go out and perform. everyone before me seemed to be extremely nervous, and that somehow made me less anxious. when it reached my turn, i just went out and tried my best to act confident. surprisingly, everything went well. i didn't have much expectation though. i was asked to go out from the room for a one to one conference almost right after my turn. hadn't got a chance to know my result....

and by the time i was done with the conference, the room where the first round competition was hold earlier was already empty. i went to the big hall, and to my astonish, renjie congratulated me. i was picked to go into the finals! incredible, i thought. ah, since i was chosen, i wil try my best. out of the 10 constestant, i was the third to go up. when it was my turn, i did what i was supposed to do. no fear this time though. what a weird thing...but i don't think i perform well, and as predicted, i wasn't in the top five. yet, having the chance to go up and do something that i don't normally do was stasifying enough for me already.

after the competition, we were asked to listen to a few more presentation (becoming increasingly boring now) and a speech by an indian alleged (what a word!) to be the head of this program. he spoke so long that in hindsight, he was the one who caused us to miss our flight. (damnit!) yup, we missed our flight..again. and this time we were not so fortunate.

due to some wrong information, we were made to believe that we would be able to standby for another flight. we ended up in a motel in kansas city (MO) that night. qiming was so frustrated, because he needed to hand in an important assignment the day after. i had to work the next day too...but what to do? there we were, in a motel trying to sort out the mess...