THE WELCOMING PARTY

*OUTLINE: Met Irina, Olga Sh., Olga Zh, Girls from Belarus, Vlad, Anton, Khanim, Nigar, Vafa, Narmina, Guliar, Wileyda, Alexey, Oxana, Ning Er, Yua Yang, Guan Le....
*DIARY:

The first day of iEARN 2002 Conference had arrived. I now can hardly rememberthat morning, where did we go, what did we see. However, there is something Iwould not forget: the atmosphere. The lobby was filled with excitement. Peopleappeared with iEARN badge made the usually-busy lobby even busier. Unlike theother days, Cosmos Hotel today was obviously preparing for something.

A tallish Russian boy passed by Grace and me. Grace could hardly take hereyes off him. She then hope eagerly to meet the delegates of iEARN whole daylong. Right above the counter in lobby hang a big poster says "Welcome iEARNfamily". I could not understand why the word "family" were used, but then Iunderstand it in the following days.

Somehow, a Latin-American-look girl recognize us as iEARN delegates, walkedup to us and greet. She introduced herself to us, and told us the schedule ofthe day. Wileyda, the girl, is from USA, and is the coordinator of YouthSummit. She is staying in another hotel Turist, about 20 minutes walk fromCosmos. She is indeed a out-going girl. I look forward to see her again.

We went on a tour after meeting Wileyda. Around 4:00 PM we were back to HotelCosmos, ready for iEARN registration. For unknown reason, the registrationwas delayed. We were told to sit there and wait. While waiting, a crowd of fivedark-haired girls entered the room. They were told to wait, too. They saw us,and had a short discussion, as if hesitate whether should come up and say helloor not. Finally, the most beautiful girl, looks like their leader, walked to meand Sylvia, said "Nice to meet you. We are from Azerbaijan." We started talkingand knew they all are 15 years old, and just arrived Moscow an hour ago. Duringthe registration, I got to know another Azerbaijan girl named Khanim. Her namewas very special since the "Kh" must be a throat sound. It took me a while tolearn to pronounce it correctly.

Few hours after registration was the welcoming party. It began with theRussian Folk group "Russia Bell" and a short introduce of SEED project. Sittingin front of us were a Russian guy with long blonde hair. Later on, peoplestarted to get to know each others. I met the Azerbaijan girls again. Khanimwas more than pleased to see me. She dragged me to meet other delegates. Wefirst met a few kids from Belarus, and then a group of people from Moscow. Thatwas how I met Irina Arhipova and Olga Shelkunova.

Olga Shelkunova, also known as Olya, said she love sport. She jogs 10 km aday. Irina Arhipova, Ira in short, prefers swimming on the other hand. Olyalove watching gymnastics, so do I. We had a little chat and then someone tookphoto of us. The blonde guy with long hair were sitting nearly by, told us heis Alexey Saveliev. Then a big group of girls in suits came. One of them, lookslike leader, was Oxana Anohina. The other girl, who kept smiling all the time,was Olga Zharova. They were from Moscow, too. But their school was different toOlya and Ira. Then I met Anton and Vladislav Kunkin, also from Ira's school.

I bumped into Tracy and Grace near the entrance. They were talking with twoBelorussian girls. One named Grunya, the other name Natalia. They were justabout to dinner. We too talked a little bit, then headed for dinner.

After dinner, the welcoming party was ended. Alexey were still hanging aroundin the lobby. Again, had a short conversation, and he left. The first nightcame to a close. I went back to my room and had a rest.

Geneva... prelude

　　其實一切來得很突然。我只記得是李老師某次在AJDS的前前前身（某個互動網站）上面遇到我，提到有個叫做ThinkQuest的比賽（其實這也是為什麼在莫斯科發生那麼多事之後我仍然會跟她打招呼）。接著，我就掉進去了。

　　還記得最早認識的是Siddharth Ladsariya（嗯～剛剛把他找回ICQ List上面了!），一個超好的印度人。本來打算要做有關音樂的網站，但是後來發現對音樂並不是那麼有興趣（其實是不看好音樂在比賽中發展的空間），所以就跳槽囉！又剛好收到Kim寄來的信，所以就跑到他們那組去囉！

　　還記得（再一次）Kim寄給我的第一封信說到他們那隊裡面有一男一女，一個18歲一個13歲（跟我一樣），一個是加拿大人，一個是愛沙尼亞人。那時候我還覺得很奇怪，愛沙尼亞？愛沙尼亞在哪裡啊？查字典說Estonia是波羅的海三小國之一，波羅的海又在哪啊？（很好笑吧？）信看完我還把Kim誤認成男的，而Jaen誤認成女的（ㄟ，那個...不許告密！）第二次寫信的時候才知道Kim其實是Kimberley Krueger（100%女的）而Jaen Saul是男的（全名寫出來就很明顯了，哈哈！）據說，Kim第一次收到我的回信的時候被嚇了一跳，她說她從未遇過"someone with such eager to participate" ^^"

　　那時候ICQ很盛行，為了聯絡方便，我們都用ICQ互相聯絡。第一次跟Jaen在ICQ上面遇到，恰巧是我段考，下午放假，而Jaen感冒在家，所以就從中午十二點聊到晚上七點（不要懷疑，是用modem），完全不停喔！不可思議吧？這個紀錄後來好像還沒破過...@@" 我們三個好像還頗有默契，常常會同時候上線，明明就是台灣半夜，愛沙尼亞下午，加拿大凌晨，卻沒約就在十分鐘內陸續開電腦，呵呵！

　　比賽那段時間其實很累，常常睡到嚇醒、睡不到兩小時就又開始工作，整個暑假就耗在電腦上，不斷的修改、不斷的寫英文...就這樣過到八月十五日。