We had news writing class this morning and it was all a fairly basic introduction into the class. We were given press badges and told that we would be interviewing people throughout the course of the program. Then, we discussed the ethics of the interview and interviewed each other, before we were sent outside to interview students about the recent construction here on campus. Of course, only foreign exchange students and transfers for summer programs are at school in the summer so we weren’t able to get much insight on the situation from our man-on-the-street interviews. But, we will be publishing our Teen Observer (that’s what we call ourselves) stories online and we have some awesome trips/interviews lined up!
Next, came the super fun part of the day. We were headed to the Ropes Course which is in Land’s End over on the other side of the bay in order to participate in a team-building exercise. Basically, it was a glorified jungle gym - think extreme zip lining. It was fabulous:) Before we began climbing, we did an exercise called “Bridge” in which we were supposed to use two boards to get across a divide without touching them to the floor and we couldn’t cross lines that had been drawn on the ground. What should have been a simple task took us an hour (shows you how well we can communicate with one another) but hey, we finally got
it!
Finally, once we finished the bridge, we were able to put harnesses and helmets on and start climbing! Boy, was that nerve wracking. I’ve been zip lining before but never have I had to climb on trees and then slide my way, balance walking over a thin wire, crazy high above the ground. It was pretty intense. I made it across once and I was about to go on the second zip line (they had 2 lines of various degrees of difficulty) but we ran out of time and had to move to the next activity. To ensure I didn’t miss out on this one, I volunteered to go second…bad idea. This one was called “Jump the Pole” and entailed climbing a tall wooden pole, think Mulan style, climbing onto the top (which rotated and wobbled by the way!) and then jumping out and attempting to touch a sort of disc hanging in the air by a rope. First of all, you were at least 30 feet in the air, probably more, strapped only by a single harness, and then told to jump to your death (figure of speech, but pretty much) That doesn’t fly with me - they had to count down 3 times for me before I could actually jump! However, once I did, the rush was exhilarating. I don’t know if I would have the courage to do it again, but it was incredible in the moment. And, it was true that going through the Ropes Course as a group did make us a stronger team and class - that bus ride back to campus was one of the best I’ve ever had.
Because our TA has pictures of me climbing and I don’t, here’s Erica
The rest of the night was slower - it seemed unnecessary considering we were all so tired from the day but nonetheless, we had dinner, and then split off into new groups to attend a workshop. For the first rotation, we will be Group 1 and this time we went to the workshop on “The Art of the Interview” Now I know I’m in Journalism, but there’s such a thing as too many interviews in one day! I did learn though that Ryan Lochte cannot, to save his life, interview well enough or intelligently enough. Ever. After the workshop was over, we had our final event of the night which was an ice cream social/dance party! And everybody knows how much I love to dance.
It seems as if this program is running us ragged, we have no free time whatsoever, not even to call back home. I suppose mealtimes is always an option. Tomorrow being Saturday, we actually get to sleep in a little later! That is until we have a busy schedule that fills up our entire day…again. But, then again, we are having such a good time that I doubt anyone minds the “slight” exhaustion:)
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