06 November 2011

john green is jealous of me.


(dad and i, waiting for john.) 

I've been clicking back to this page for nearly a week, trying to find a way to formulate my thoughts and excitement into a cohesive blog post. I'm not sure that will happen, but I'll give it my best shot and attempt to capture a little bit of Tuesday.

I drove up to Indy with my parents on Tuesday. My mom had a flight to catch, and I wanted to attend John Green's event at Butler University. My dad and I arrived at Clowes with a little less than an hour and a half before John took the stage. We drove around the neighborhood, grabbed some food, and wandered back to Clowes, an hour before it was scheduled to start. Fourth row seats gave us a great view of the stage, and, ultimately, John.

There's no way that I have enough patience to write out, in detail, (or you enough patience to read it all) everything that happened that night, so I'll just go for the highlights. (However, if you would like it nicely summed up, here you go.)


It was a bit surreal when John walked out on the stage. Besides writing books, he and his brother run a youtube channel that's developed into an online community. Because of this, I've heard John talk many times, and I know what he looks like. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but it was so weird when he sounded the same in real life as he does on youtube.


After John talked and read from the first chapter of his upcoming book, The Fault in Our Stars, he opened up the mikes for questions. I jumped up, second in line at the right mike. The girl in front of me, Katrina, asked for a high-five from John, which he gave her. He answered another question, and then, ahhh: John Green was looking at me, and making eye contact with me. One of the characters in TFIOS, named Isaac, has eye cancer. I asked John if he intentionally named the character with eye cancer a name that sounds like eye sick. (Isaac = eye sick.) He laughed, (yes, I made John Green laugh) and explained that he named Isaac after the biblical Isaac, who became blind later in life. Gus was sitting directly behind us, and he managed to film a little bit of my question.


I slipped out of the auditorium a minute or two early so we wouldn't have to wait in such a long line to get my copy of Paper Towns signed. Last week, my friend Chris wrote on my facebook telling me that he was a huge fan of John Green. There was no way that I could have the opportunity to get him a signature and not do it (plus, it gave me more time to talk to John!). :) I fished through my purse and found a boarding pass from my trip to France. After John signed my book, I slid the boarding pass over to him.

"This one's for my friend Chris. He lives in South Africa."
"Wow, South Africa!"
"Yeah, we met in the Middle East a few summers ago."
"You're quite the world traveler. I'm jealous."

It was the highlight of my life.

Best wishes,
katie

10 comments:

  1. that's just amazing, darling. loved it all :))
    -jocee <3

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  2. Best wishes FTW. Or better FTL.
    I love Vlogrothers, they are my TV.
    I'm glad you got to meet him.
    It is a little insane :)
    -Sara

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  3. That's so cool! I'm happy for you that you had the chance to see him talking.
    And I like that you asked him a question. I'm always way too shy to do something like that and I can never think of good questions :(
    And I think I know now why he let people take pictures with him at the signing in Vienna. We where like 60 people there. It was in a small library and they expected maybe 20 people. They had no idea that John has so many fans.

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  4. Okay--you made actual John Green laugh and he told you he was jealous? Yeah. I'm jealous now.
    I love the few of his books I've read in the past few months and am hungering for more to arrive, soon!

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  5. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

    That is all.

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  6. i'm so happy for you, it sounds like you had an awesome time. it's fun when you meet the famous people you admire and they think you rock, crazy twist of fate. back when PB and I were obsessed (like we always are you know) with Barlowgirl we meet them at a concert and they we in love with my outfit and talked to us for awhile, afterwards i felt like a million bucks.
    LF

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  7. That is so awesome! I am now equally as jealous. ;)

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  8. Jocee- :)

    SaraMeg- heck yes. they're min too. :)

    Antonia- normally, I would never ask a question, but there, it was like, these are all Nerdfighters. they are FAMILY. ha, see, you will always have a better John Green story than me because you got a picture with him. :)

    Kaylie- hey. you're pretty awesome yourself.

    Libby- I KNOW. it was amazing. The Fault in Our Stars comes out soon...preorder it from Waterstones!


    Capillya- YES.

    LF- that might have been my favorite part of the night, that he's so nice and friendly IRL.

    Kendall- someday, you will meet him too. :)

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  9. Hello Kate. :]

    John Green?! Jealous of YOU?! What a day. :]

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go ahead. make my day.