Carpe Noctem

How I did it: I met Art and Brian at MEPS on Tuesday night. We ate dinner together and hung out afterwards. Our curfew was supposed to be 10:30 pm so we could all be rested and up at 4:00 am the next morning. So it's 8:45 pm and we're working out in the gym just us, then we walked around. We thought about hotwiring a car so we could do something other than stay and sit and do, well, nothing.

We walked around the hotel's pool and found that they had a lake, so we went and looked at that. Art joked about throwing me in, mostly because I've never been to a beach before. We found a gazebo and stood under there for awhile, talking about our lives and trading stories. Afterwards we went into the main building so we wouldn't have to walk around the lake again and found ourselves in the courtyard.

Well the courtyard has lights hanging above everywhere, stringing from one building to another. I was like, "In a movie, these lights would come on and some woman would be swept off her feet." Art clapped his hands twice, nothing happened. But there was jazz music playing so we danced around for a little bit, mostly playing around. This guy was four years older than me and I'd met him just a few hours before, so at first I didn't realize why he wanted to be in such close proximity to me.

It turns out that I guess he developed a crush-lette. He walked me back to my room and said that he couldn't let a cute girl walk back to her room alone. We ended up walking around for another ten minutes or so before we finally got back to my room - which we'd passed twice just because we had time. We were saying goodbye and he was like, "I'd give you a kiss, but this wasn't a date." I was tempted to tell him to do it anyways, but I didn't.

:)

It was simple, but fun. We didn't break the rules, but we definitely connected. I talked with Brian, Jerry, and Art for awhile about horror movies and basic training. It was really carpe noctem for me, even if it doesn't sound like that for others. It was a "you have to be there" kind of experience.

Lessons & tips: It's all about putting your all into it. If you can't throw yourself into something head on, what's the point? I mean, I didn't jump Art or anything, but if I would of things would have turned out different - no doubt. It's about being yourself and having fun.

Resources: Honestly, just the hotel, MEPS, and the fact that we were joining the military.

Nov 26, 2008, 08:46PM PST | 0 comments