Hi everyone!! Ahhhhh! I'm here & I made it! Day one was awesome already and I can't wait to get into this. I think the first thing that I'm definitely adjusting to is, one, being so far ahead of everyone back home time wise! At the time I'm writing this blog post, it's almost 6AM here in Virginia and merely 3 AM on my west coast home! Sorry if you get a call or text or general notification from me early enough to make you bewildered out of your mind....I'm getting used to it :')
Plane ride!
The plane ride was okay! Thank you Dinah for a nonstop flight, because a girl from light gray (I think?) had horror stories about her connection flight. She made it though!
The one thing that was going through my head while flying is that the window seat, while very aesthetic and all, is more like a trap. I don't think I ever realized how awkward I'd feel to ask two people to the left of me to get up so I could move. Yikes.
I actually met a girl, Kalissa, (I hope I'm spelling your name right!) and we ended up on the same flight. We were both super confused when we got to Dulles because we didn't understand the whole take the tram to the baggage claim area. It just didn't seem right, but we got there.
Once we got to baggage claim, we me up with 4 or 5 other delegates and the staff member Madison who shuttled us to the campus afterwards. We chatted with the delegates and eventually there was about 9 or 10 of us ready to get to Mason!
While we were on the shuttle to the campus, one of guys on the bus (for the love of, I can't remember his name. Sorry!) actually started CRYING. Why? TREES. It's SO green out here in VI! We all joked that crying over trees
and general vegetation is how we know we're all environmentalists at heart. Call us tree huggers, we don't care.
Ignore the ugly picture of the sign, I kept missing it. Anyway, the campus was only about 20-25 minutes away from Dulles and we got there quickly with all the chatting. After we arrived, we checked in and got our badges! I don't have a picture of mine on hand, but they're pretty cool looking. They state your first and last name, where you're from, and what color group you're in.
After that, we got up to our rooms! I was lucky enough to get a single room (and so were a lot of others. We all were expecting 4 to a room irregardless of personal preference.) I was on the last shuttle in, so we had a whole 5 minutes to get up there, get dressed into professional clothes, and then meet back downstairs to get with our color group and meet the group's advisors. I don't have a picture, but Jesse and Jesi are awesome!
It's getting pretty close to breakfast time here and I still need to showerrrrr, so I'm going to speed up the last half of the night. Of course, there is still so much more I wish I cold say in this post but time is verrry limited here! Anyway, after we got to meet with our color group, we headed over to the dining hall to have the opening dinner. I actually won the right to do the opening and greeting speech for Durwood Zaelke, the speaker of the night! Jesi had a script, and 4-5 other delegates and I rock-paper-scissor'd (I know, so professional) for who would read it. Apparently, I'm awesome at RPS, so duel me sometime--huh?
The speech wasn't long and it actually was very easy for me to read fluently thank goodness. I oddly didn't feel scared to read a speech in front of 280+ delegates and the countless staff members?? I think something about being literally cross country has made me a little bold. In the good way though. It was actually fun because I sat at a "reserved for special delegates" table up front where they seated me, the intro speech, and 3 other people with designated questions for the speaker. Although I wasn't thrilled at first to be taken away from the people I am getting to know who were sitting in the back, it still felt nice to be up front.
We have a workbook that contains pretty much any and everything about the summit. Every speaker has a page where there's a brief biography, as well as a notes section so you can jot down questions or notes about the speech:
Anyway, I need to wrap up here because it's now supppper close to breakfast and I need to get in and out of the shower to get moving. Day 2 (or...today.) will most likely be up tomorrow morning because I figured out quite quickly that writing these posts are going to be super time consuming. Until then!