THON 09 has finally passed and it definitely was my favorite of three I've been at so far for many reasons.
1. I was already here at the Park, no need to drive 2 hours from Middletown and get a hotel we wouldn't spend much time at anyway.
2. I got to work the webcast which initially I was fine with only doing one shift, but something about looking for good shots of the crowd is always fun for me. What I usually look for is people with interesting hats, there sure were a lot of them.
3. I knew many more people dancing and just straight up involved than I did in previous years. Until this year my network was limited to the dancers from my campus. This year it was them, my Blue & White people, people I work with during basketball that were working the webcast or something related and just the various people I see pretty much everyday.
4. The people that I knew dancing were people I have varying amounts of closeness with. First there's Tim one of the B&W dancers, until last week I didn't think he even knew my name, yet when I get on the floor and find him he's glad to see me down there. I'm gonna have to talk to him some more at meetings, cool guy. Next is my friend/audio and video production partner Jackie, I've known her for about 6 weeks and we've bonded well through our love for chocolate and our Korean teacher. She's one of the few people I interact with pretty regularly this semester so being able to cheer her on was a delight. Finally my #1 brother Micah. It was a plan that we came up with after our crazy night during last year's THON, he'd dance and I was going to be his moraler. Well only one of us managed to live up to that, but I was there with him during the final stretch. What was interesting about the floor pass situation was that though there had been a somewhat laid out shift schedule, Micah always asked that I come down. It was definitely a result of our adventure last year, since he was sure I was going to be around (except from 6-7AM when I felt like I needed to shower), which I was and takes me to my last point.
5. I realized the absolute need for me to be dancing next year. I've said it a lot recently since I wasn't chosen to dance this year and that is it would be a great way to go out as a senior dancing. All the time I've put into THON and it culminates that way? There's no doubt it would be fantastic. Watching how Micah was up for pretty much the entire time until the end when things were slowing down and Tim being able to show signs delusion, though not really showing any major fatigue, set up a real challenge for me to match. On the other hand, when I saw Jackie during the final hour, she was crying from the pain in her knees pretty much keeping her glued to the spot she was in. The fight was still in her and that was what I expected from her as well as Micah and Tim, and I know it'll be there if I'm going for 46.

I want to make my presence felt early and known that I'm going to dance in THON 2010, by any means. Its the perfect ending to my involvement with the event as an undergrad, as well as the potential scenario of dancing with three of my favorite people in the world Katie, Amanda and the Little One.

-Mikhail