For the next month or two of meetings, I reminded everyone to sign up for the group I had created, giving them all the group information each time. By the day that the $35 deadline passed, a whopping two people had registered with the group, (one of whom wasn't even a member of that club, but of my previous school's "Genshiken" club; I had enlisted his help in accumulating a group of 10). But I stayed strong; several of the members had been looking for permission from parents, or seeing if they would have enough money, before they joined. Surely this was still possible. At this point, I would be spending more money on my own access, but I just wanted to see this plan succeed.

A week before the $40 deadline, however, the sole new registrar forced me to just say "fuck it" and disband the group registration. I registered myself (or rather, I thought I registered myself; more on that later), informed my friends and club members, and went to the convention. A few unmentioned snags aside (my parents have always been hesitant about me driving and insisted upon accompanying me to Chicago; go figure) I had little trouble getting to the convention, my parents and I setting up camp at the hotel directly across the street from the convention center.

A good night's sleep and a breakfast later and I was ready to get my first convention on. No cosplay to set up, no fancy camera dragging me down; just my Nintendo DS Lite and iPod to keep me company in the line, which started first around the corner, wrapping around the convention center, along the sidewalk. I walked along, marveling at the number of cosplayers, laughing at some of the less skilled ones, and stopping shortly to admire a few others. As I took the makeshift sign marking the end of the line, at 8:00am Central time, I knew that this was it. This was my time. I was going to officially be marked as an otaku.

About a half hour after I got into the line, it started moving into the convention center. As I walked in, there was an escalator on my right, and a large opening to my left, and yet with only two routes to choose from, I was utterly lost.

This was my first test: the Trial of Navigation.

After a few minutes of gawking and swooning over the sheer girth of this aura of otakudom (e.g. "group cosplay" and the same level of otakudom), I noticed a sign that said "Registration this way." That was the easy part.

The second test, the Trial of Endurance, was much more...trying.

As it turned out, I hadn't registered (it had been too late to register and it didn't save my data); and as it turned out, it would have taken me just as long to get my badge if I had. When I was about halfway through the line to the registration computers they had set up (probably two hours in), I noticed that the line seemed to be slowing down. I hadn't expected registration to take this long in the first place, but I didn't let it phase me; I was going to see this through.

Another three or four hours, and I was almost at the computers, with only three or four more people in front of me, and the line simply halted for at least a half, maybe a full hour. Then an ACen official came out and announced, quite simply that their registration servers had crashed. This meant that they couldn't print badges, couldn't register anyone else, couldn't do jack shit. They had tried futilely to restart the server several times, with no results.

I later learned the cause of all this trouble, but for the moment all I had to ponder was the decision to come here. Would it be worth it if I waited until things got sorted out? Was this all in vain? Fuck, would I even get inside the convention? What was I doing with my life? I even nearly broke down crying, and called my mom so she could comfort me. Well, fate didn't exactly smile on me this day, but it at least showed some pity; the convention staff started manually writing down names on the badges. (Damn, their hands must have hurt by the end of it all.)

So it turned out that 11 hours after the start of this adventure (7:00pm, Central time), having had no food, drink, or restroom for the duration, I found myself with my convention badge. My parents showed up with food and drink for me, which I hardly tasted as I inhaled it greedily. By this time the Dealers' Room was closed, so I went to explore the rest of the convention, being held in the connected hotel. I laughed at the regular hotel-goers being freaked out by the various cosplayers, laughed at the cosplayers reveling in the hotel-goers' fearful confusion, and realized that the wait had all been worth it. This was my time. I was officially an otaku, an elite among geeks everywhere, commanding a little more nerdy respect than yesterday, regretting nothing.

Don't get me wrong; the two days I had left after this were a blast, especially since that's when all my friends (most from the group I was trying to get together, ironically) showed up.

Since my parents had lent me all the money I spent, my third test was the Trial of Reimbursement; but that's a story for another time.