~ Training Day~

Today I had to  be at the dining hall at 8:45 to catch a bus to the training course which took about 15 minutes  to get from the campus to the course. The whole class went and we first split up into three groups and we all had different staff leaders,  my staff leader was Sarah. Our group was club penguin because we all liked penguins. We all first took a moment to familiar ourselves with one another and Sarah. We first all established some things we hope for the group to accomplish like having fun, keeping up the encouragement, and uphold communication. From there we went on to our first activity which was swinging from ropes to different platforms and our mission was to move these "penguin eggs" from one side to the other. It had a couple obstacles like swinging which was a little hard, but after a while we all got the hang of it. After we did trust falls with partners and we stepped it  up a notch where we all together lifted someone in the air. The next task was to carry a person and actually flip them 360 degrees while the person was holding water. We managed to all  accomplish it and did not drop anyone which is a plus.

After we did a lot of trust exercises the moment had came where we strapped up with harness and got ready to embrace out inner money, well at least mine was a inner chipmunk.Our first exercise was to climb this very tall wooden pole and on the very top there is this platform that is smaller than the size of the pizza box and four people had to actually stand on it and together fall. My team  were the fastest group to accomplish the task I got up on the top very quickly it wasn't hard for at least me, but getting everyone to stand on the tiny wobbly surface was very difficult. We made it though and we all trusted each other with lifting each other up and it was really great to have a team  that was encouraging and trustworthy.

Embracing the chipmunk life

After the exercise we had this activity where I got attached to a rope and at the end of the rope about 10 people are attached and on the count of  3 are supposed to run and when they run there  pulling the rope so I go high up in the air. So it was a group effort because the rest of the people were running to hoist me up as high as they could. I think I was the highest because since I was the lightest and the people pulling me were almost all guys and probably three times my size I just flew up in the air like superman. I had so much fun. After that exercise we had freedom to choose any of the other courses I did a couple of different challenges that involved climbing  a very tall pole jumping off it and catching flags or hanging off a monkey bar. I do not recommend  this if you are afraid of heights. Honestly after the sky deck in Chicago I got over any reservations of heights I had. The only bad thing about the course was the amount of bugs and the humidity, but it kind of made the experience more fun and genuine because we were actually in a  forest.

It was a really nice activity because I just got to trust people and form an actual team almost like a family,  its very hard to describe, but I am happy I signed for this program and I absolutely loved this activity. From the activity I went to dinner, fell asleep, took a shower and finally started my essay which I should probably keep working on. Talk to you tomorrow!