Staying in Las Vegas

by Josh Bao

As the plane touched down in LAS, I looked out the window. The pilot had just said that Vegas was hot and tropical, but as I looked, Vegas did not look like the way its reputation boasted of. I was here for the AMSP Winter Camp. We were going to stay in Las Vegas for four days. I joined my group, as we filed off the plane. We went to the baggage claim, and there were many gaming machines for gamblers. When everybody had their bags, we left for the pickup area. We waited for a while, and my group’s teacher told us to look for a “silver KIA.” We waited for a while until we saw the car.

All four of us crammed into the car, and our driver took us to the University of Las Vegas (UNLV). We checked in and got the key cards to our dorms. Each room had two beds, so I assumed that we had roommates. I waited for my school group to come, but they didn’t come. Eventually, we had to go to dinner, so I went with my original group. We went to the ballroom in the university, and we ate dinner. After dinner, we left into one of the buildings to have an orientation.

In the middle of the orientation, my friend Jared came, and we were the only people from our school there. They announced houses and groups, and then we went to see a movie. There was two choices: October Sky and How to Train a Dragon.  I watched “October Sky,” and when the movie was almost done, we finally saw our group. My roommate was Rohit. The rest of my group got settled, and we talked. Then we realized that we had to share bathrooms with four people. Luckily, our neighbors were Ken and Matthew, unlike Javid and Jared, who were sharing bathrooms with my original group.

We talked for a long time, and my friends ate their dinner. Then, we brushed teeth, and did all of our regular “before bed” rituals. Finally we went to bed.

The next day we went to breakfast, and ate. During breakfast, we had a fun time taking Javid’s pencil box, and hiding it. When we finished breakfast, we went to math class. We spent the morning doing math problems, and learning faster solutions. Then, when we were finished, we went to have lunch. We ate, and kept hiding Javid’s pencil case. After lunch we went to our dorms for some time. Then we went to our house meeting, where we played a game Detectives, Thieves, Robbers (DTR).

When we were finished, we were allowed to go to our dorms for bed. Again, we went to bed, and did our rituals. It was funny, because Jared played a prank on us before we went to bed. The next day, I woke up a little earlier, and I prank called Jared. Then our floor supervisor, called us all up for breakfast. The day went by just like the day before, but this time we had to do a puzzle during our house meeting. We only completed one puzzle, but that is because one of the other puzzles was missing a lot of pieces.

When we went to bed, I felt really happy, because this camp was really exciting. The next morning, the morning was the same, but we were supposed to take a practice MathCounts round. We did many worksheets, and at the end, they announced those who had went to the final round. Among them was Ken Tanaka, but unfortunately, he lost to an eighth grader on the last question.

At the house meeting, we had to build a bridge out of spaghetti. We made many bridges, and balanced 3 candies. However, there was an annoying kid, who kept running up the stairs with members of his group, and so we had to build a security system. Finally, we finished, and our group waited for Mr. Bal to come heck on us, and then we pranked him.

The next day was our trip to Hoover Dam. We packed up, and then left to the cars. We spent the morning admiring the sights of the magnificent life-sustaining dam. When we returned to the university, I bid farewell to my school group. Then my own group left, and surprise, surprise I saw my old school group. Their story was that they missed their flight. We were all trying to get on the 6:30 flight, and we actually made it. I will always remember that trip.