The Longest Call

by Owen Behrens, Timothy Scott, Nathan Rexroth, and Hallie Griffin

Owen

OK so I don't really write stories, so this is gonna be more of an essay type thing. But it's a story, so I put it in the stories section.

It was the afternoon of the 27th. (March 27, 2023) Teams was pretty dead, as usual. As I was doing my English like a responsible child, I heard the familiar sound of a teams notif. "Ah, It's probably either Elizabeth or Sunda replying in the counting thread." I thought to myself. Of course, I immediately opened teams and checked the courtyard, like a true procrastinator. Instead of the 3287 I was expecting, I saw a post from Thomas (Blake) Crosby (Student Navigator.) He shall henceforth be referred to as Blake. Anyway the post went a little something like this:

Is anyone free 9 pm cst for absolutely no reason

I honestly didn't know if it was a joke, or if it was serious. So, I responded,

why are you asking

Then Hallie responded with a very characteristic,

yOuLl nEvEr kNoW!

I laugh reacted to it and went back to my English. A few minutes later, I received a DM from Hallie. In short, she said that she and Blake were doing a hangout call and that I could come if I wanted to. However, she noted that the call was "MILDLY exclusive." After about three seconds of contemplation, I decided that talking to NSA students online was more important than sleeping. So, I told Hallie that I would probably be able to come. Later that evening, It was getting close to 9pm CST, and I hadn't heard anything from either Blake or Hallie. I was wondering if they had maybe forgotten about me. So, I asked where the meeting was going to be held. Hallie said that she would make a chat. She did, and named it "le call u-u." I asked if I could add Riley, and after Hallie said yes, I added her. Soon it was 9:00, and I was wondering why we had not started. I sent the message, "Are we gonna start, or are we waiting for something?" Hallie then said that the call was actually the next day. After thoroughly dying from embarrassment, I went to bed. Later the next day, there were about six people in the chat. We started the call at 9:02, and it was a lot of fun. We played Gartic and laughed a lot, and we all wanted to do it again. I don't remember how many more times we had a call, but on Thursday, Hallie had the idea to try to break the record for the longest call on teams, ever. We all agreed that this would be a good idea. But we didn't know that there had to be at least two people in the call. Tim and I were the only ones left in the call, and when he left it ended. We talked about it for a while, and I said that I could leave my computer on and open to the teams meeting for an indefinite amount of time. Hallie said she could do the same. So, it started. We didn't talk much at first, but Hallie shared her Spotify screen, and so we all listened to her music. (Except for me; I had my speakers off.) Anyway, a few people posted about the call in the courtyard, and we soon had about 25 people in the chat. At the peak of the call, there were 9 people in the call at the same time. There were a few threats to kick everyone from the team and end the call, but these were (mostly) jokes and no one kicked anyone out. I was careful to record the whole meeting with OBS. I actually didn't get the entire thing, but I got one long recording with 85% of the meeting in one recording. During the meeting, Hallie and I were on for the whole time. Nathan also left his computer on for the majority of the call, which saved us once when Hallie accidentally left. We hit the 24 hour mark and were celebrating. I was doing my school, and trying to download the meeting recordings. No one really knows what happened, but sometime while I was in bed, the meeting was stopped. No one was removed from the chat, but now video and audio calls had been disabled for everyone, even Hallie. We didn't know what happened, but my guess was that the meeting had been shut down by admins. After much lamenting, I was added to a new chat. Its name is Le Call Numero Zwei.

Timothy

The call.... The call was a great idea that I heard started from two people joking around, and quickly turned into beating a world record call. It took a while to get it started and to record it, but it was soon a thing. Through the dark stormy nights, through the sirens and the wind, through the boredom, there came hope, and a society dedicated to being there. It was a great place to hang out, play games, talk, and just be with people. It was great to hang out with Nathan, Owen, Blake, and Hallie for hours while just existing. It was a great experience, and one that I will not soon forget, thanks for the opportunities, and the company.

Nathan

It was a usual night when Tim dmd me asking if I wanted to join a call, I said sure, when? He said around 9 pm so I came to that. And then two hours after we ended Hallie suggested that we go for the record of longest call in NSA history. Next thing I know I’m asleep with my Ipad running a call. Next day I find out at some point I was alone because Hallie accidentally left somehow. So, then I continue on with my day and have some fun times on the call if anyone is on. Here are a few funny moments. So, I was sitting at my desk scrolling through the chat because I was “bored” then suddenly out of nowhere comes Tim’s voice, he scared me half to death. Other fun moments were when me, Blake, Hallie, Tim were on talking (along with others at random times) we played gartic phone quite a few times and we got to know each other a lot even if we weren’t talking the whole call. So, um yeah that’s my perspective on the record of longest call in NSA history. (I didn’t go into much detail as to what all happened on the call…that’s for the others to say if they want to)

Hallie

Hey guys! So, I'm here to tell you about my experience with the 30 hour call!

March 27 blake and I decided to do a call together

Blake asked if we could invite others

March 28 at 9 PM we had a first call, with owen, riley, noah, nathan, tim scott, blake,. It ended at 11 PM CST

March 30 1 PM CST we started a second call.

March 30th at 2, I suggested we make NSA history

The second call ended at 2:15 PM CST

The third call, the 30 hour long one, started at Thursday, March 30TH at 2: 17 PM cst, and ended Friday, March 31, at 8:19 PM, (Possibly) because there were too many people on the chat.

Ok, now here is more of a narrative I suppose.

So… Let’s think. (this is going to be vERY casual, because I don’t feel like writing formally XD) Ok, so Blake and I were just hanging out, and then we decided to do a call. Why? No particular reason, just for fun. So we planned a day, and Blake made a post in the courtyard, asking who was available March 28th at 9 PM. Owen responded, asking why, and so I DM’d him that Blake and I were going to do a call, and we were trying to see if others wanted to join, but that (on my part at least lol) we were wanting to keep is somewhat small. So we made a chat with Owen, Blake, and I. Owen asked if he could add Riley, and we said yeah, so then Riley joined us! Riley asked if she could add a friend, and we said yeah, so she added Noah H. Slowly, Tim S, Shamilah, and- ykw I wont list all the people, there is a tON of people who were added. But not all at once, it was a trickle. But anyway, we did the call, and then we added more people, and did another call, and then we ended that, and I suggested we try and get the longest call record. So we started a call. We played Gartic a bit, and then listened to music and studied. A few times Noah H came on and judged my music tastes smh lol. At somepoint, Owen had to go to the dentist, so it was just me and Nathan in the call. We just did school and chilled. It was epic!!! We hung out for hours, with people coming and going, with Nathan, Tim, Owen, and I being the most consistent. At my night it was really fun, because I was tired and we all just hung out and were random (Ok mostly I was random but whatever). We pretty much just did this until 8:19 PM CST on Friday, when for some reason, it got shut down. We now have a different chat where we do random calls frequently, but that isn’t about the 30 hour call, so I guess this is where my story ends. The last thing I shall say is this- I’m so thankful to everyone who decided to do it, and it was such a wonderful time to share with Yall, and I love how much closer we all got ☺️ that’s all I’ve got to say!! diafopl