A Year of Memories_First Weekend

After all of my belongings found their new homes in my new room, the “Triple” set off for a long weekend of smiling activities. What I mean is, we attended a number of activities that forced us to smile and make small talk with our new class members. Dances, picnics, ice cream socials, ice breaking activities, and even just time in the cafeteria. All this time was designed for us to meet new people and learn names that we would forget in the next minute.

Thinking back, I wonder how my introverted personality survived that weekend of outgoing hellos. But I have a feeling all of the shyness was left behind because everyone had gone into survival mode. All 320 of us were in a new environment knowing almost no one. We quickly realized that we would have to spend the next two years here, not as just a school, but a home and community. So we would all have to find our niches, no outcasts. So we all fought to find friends. Small talk became under cover interviews and we weeded through the other 319 students to find our best friend.

While trying to find our friends, we also had to sell ourselves. In a matter of minutes, we had to show the other person how great of a person we were. This weekend was full of first impressions. And we all did our best to make them good impressions. This caused us to really figure out who we were. In order to sum up our best traits in 5 minutes, we had to know what our good qualities were. We also had to figure out what types of friends we wanted because our friends took part in defining us.
Although this weekend was hectic and scattered, many of us learned one of the most important things, who we are and how we define ourselves. For me this was a huge confidence boost because I realized I was in control of my life. I learned that I was capable of deciding what type of person I wanted to be and changing myself, for the better.