In Which Rayla Throws A Bon Voyage Party...

Thank you so much to everyone who came to the "Bon Voyage" party. I think we all had an amazing time! It started out with some interesting Italian soda making/science experiements, where a few of the [weird] people mixed together...er...unique flavor combinations, like Peaches 'n' Lime 'n' Cream. Cheers! After some delicious, and some not so delicious, Italian/"French" sodas, we played Apples to Apples, the most freaking amazing game I have ever played. (By the way, I still think Lorsine got it wrong...Chunky George W. Bush all the way!) Apples to Apples was followed by the most American meal we could think of - sandwiches, potato chips and macaroni 'n' cheese! It was really delicious actually, in my opinion. What did you guys think? Anyway, after dinner, we played possibly the most exciting (and educational!) game of the evening - France Trivia! Who would have thought that some many intelligent juniors would have already forgotten absolutely everything from Modern World History? Congrats to L'Équipe d'Escargot for winning by a whopping thousand points! Who knows maybe we'll have a rematch at my Coming Back Party! Just kidding. Kind of. France Trivia was followed by a quick game of ImaginIff, which was then followed by an absolutely amazing cake [which we ate]. The loudest and craziest game of the evening was Hilarium, a ridiculous game of matching, charades and REALLY LOUD NOISES. We played several rounds of that until we were so hyper that we were probably killing brain cells from sheer speed of talking. Hilarium was the loudest, but the final [and I think best] game we played was the Gift Exchange at the very end. This slightly frightening gift exchange involved violent stealing and hoarding of the pink lotion, and best of all, the prized Burt's Bees [which I ended up getting, yay]! And that concluded the evening.

Thanks again everyone for coming! It meant so much to me that you all came to wish me "bon voyage and bon chance!" I hope you all enjoyed your goodie bags too, especially that CD! [Sidenote: there's actually three different versions of the CD. iTunes apparently only allows you to burn the same playlist to a CD 7 times, therefore there are three different versions, but they all have the same songs except for the first song.] Here's the playlist that was on it [so even if you weren't at the party you can listen to it!], along with a little bit of commentary about why I chose each song:

1) "Madly" - Tristan Prettyman (...was actually recommended to me by a fellow SYAer. She posted on our SYA Facebook group something like, "Oh my gosh, there's this awesome free download on iTunes, download it!" and I did, and it was awesome.)

1) "Six Feet Under The Stars" - All Time Low (...is a tribute to one of my best friends in the world who couldn't be at the party, and her name is Amy. She lives in Colorado, and I've known her...for like, forever. She really recently introduced me to the awesomeness of this song, and I put it on here for all of you guys.)

1) "Dance Inside" - The All-American Rejects (...me and Nuria and Nicole once had a discussion about this song. I decided that [after a lot of debate] this was by far the best AAR song, despite the fact that it is undoubtedly the dirtiest.)

2) "Bubbly" - Colbie Caillat (...this song became really important to me over the summer. Now every time I hear it, I think of my amazing experience at SIG (aka Nerd Camp), and all the awesome friends I made there.)

3) "First Time" - Lifehouse (...well, I recently got really obsessed with Lifehouse. Much like my previous music obsessions - Snow Patrol, Twilight songs, "Your Guardian Angel"), I totally fell in love with all of their songs, but this is one of my absolute favorites, partially because it's one of their lesser known songs.)

4) "I Kissed A Girl" - Katy Perry (...too many memories of dancing around like crazy and spontaneously singing this song in the elevators of Towle Hall to leave this one off.)

5) "Best I've Ever Had" - Vertical Horizon (...I don't think that Nuria would ever expect me to base my music selections off what she listens to, mostly because we listen to such different things, but then I was downloading a ton of new music, I remembered that one time, maybe a really long time ago, Nuria was listening to a Vertical Horizon CD. I downloaded this song randomly, listened to it, and loved it.)

6) "Be My Escape" - Relient K (...you know, I never did figure out if it was "Ree-Lie-Ent" or "Rel-y-ent" K?)

7) "How You Remind Me" - Nickelback (...this is just one of those classics, at least to me, that you can't really leave off. It demands a place on this CD of self-proclaimed "awesomeness.")

8) "Sorry" - Buckcherry (...sorry I had to leave you guys! Well, that's not really why I put this on here, but still. But seriously, have you ever been listening to the radio and you just have to know what's playing because it's so awesome. This is a song that was like that for me; I love when a song just grabs you like that.)

9) "Through Glass" - Stone Sour (...another tribute to the lovely Amy, this song is something that I first heard [of all places] on her MySpace page! No joke. The funny thing about this band is that this song is amazing, yet I can't listen to anything else they sing - way too much hardcore and metal!)

10) "I'm Yours" - Jason Mraz (...this is one of those songs that everyone has heard, but they don't know that they've heard it. It's funny, every time I tell someone to listen to this song, they listen for five seconds and then they're like, "I've heard this before! Dang, where did I heard that?!" I thought it was in a commercial or something. Maybe on Grey's. Turns out it's not. I have no idea where I first heard it, it's kind of a mystery, but it's awesome.)

11) "Slide" - The Goo Goo Dolls (...you'd think that a band with a name like "The Goo Goo Dolls" would have totally weird/stupid music [and I guess the non-stupidity of their music is still debatable, but I like it!] Anyway, this is probably the best Goo Goo Dolls song, in my opinion. I kind of love it. It makes me want to sing or dance or something.)

12) "Be Like That" - 3 Doors Down (...I love this song because it's so simple, it gets stuck in your heard. But it's also a pretty awesome song. I mean, who wouldn't want to be like that? I think a lot of people would give a lot to change things about themselves, but it also begs the question, would it even do any good? Wow, sorry to get all philosophical. Hehehe. I just like the message in this song.)

13) "For The Nights I Can't Remember" - Hedley (...more people should listen to Hedley. They're pretty awesome. I found them thanks to the amazing pandora.com, and I'm glad I did. This is my favorite Hedley song, and it also happens to be one of my very favorite Twilight/Jacob songs. I just love it.)

14) "Whatever It Takes" - Lifehouse (...this song is stalking me. I already said I loved Lifehouse, and this amazing Lifehouse song seems to be following me. On the radio. On my iPod. In stores at the mall...everywhere. And I can't really complain, it's a freaking amazing song.)

15) "All Over You" - The Spill Canvas (...I think I have to thank one of my Twilight friends for turning me into a Spill Canvas fan too. This song is my absolute favorite song at this exact moment [subject to change without notice!] and I love it. Also, The Spill Canvas is a lesser known band, so if you guys like this song, you should listen to some of their other stuff too!)

So that's the playlist/CD. I really hoped you guys liked it, I took some time to choose some great songs for you guys!

The party was some of my goodbyes, but I'll also be at AHS on the first day of school (Tuesday) during lunch for the last minute ones. B-Hall if you want to talk to me!

I leave for Rennes on Wednesday, Sept. 3 at 6:00 am.