Moderator! Whoo!

So today was my M day. I started the day off with a Dr. Seuss quote...Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You...I liked it, thought it summed up how I felt about today pretty well. My group was off today for some reason - not really sure why. They were kinda dead in my morning meeting, and then i was missing like 3 people in the evening meeting. THEN I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE AGAIN ARRRG. Maybe I'll start remembering. Our cheers were pretty good - we did a quote from the hangover. Basically, I was on the stage and said, hey fours, how bout that ride in...I guess that's why they call it the classic city...and then they stood up and said - we're the best group four that anyone could have, etc. Good times. I think I'm gonna try to bash Darien this Wednesday. We'll see how that goes. I'll do a whole session recap tomorrow after Oasis. OH - Hi was definitely when Hannah walked by me on stage as my Pauly D character is cat calling her, and I decided to say how much I liked her zebra skirt, then I said I wanted to run with them and the audience went CRAZY. They loved it. That made me feel really good. Also, when my mom called me and wanted to know when her and her fiance Bill could come down and see me. Also, again, when Alyson told me her favorite song on the CD I burnt her was Your Hand in Mine. Until tomorrow, good night!

Oops! Missed a day. No worries. So yesterday I spent a lot of time with the parents since I had to do parent check-in and parent panel. I could have spent some time with the students, but I chose not to because it didn't go well last time i had parent panel and because I was tired. Anyway, parent panel went SO much better than last time. I really just need to be myself and answer questions honestly and how I would answer them. Next favorite part of the day? Evening session. It went really well, I apologized to the students for not seeing them much and I tried to remember all their names, and I think a lot of them could tell that I really cared about getting to know them. They came up with a really awesome cheer which didn't WIN but still represented the Fine Lookin' Four group well. Great group. After OASIS registration today, a lot of them came up to me to say bye and thank me, which meant a lot considering I hadn't seen them much. One of them is coming to Discovery and one is seriously considering it. I'm really excited about it and I can't wait to see them. Anyway, this is a really brief blog because I've got to crash and get some sleep.

Struggle. I usually like Day 2 of orientation. Resource fair, academic area meetings, registration. Usually there's not much to screw up. Today at registration there were so many questions, not to mention OASIS issues. First, three student's pin weren't working, so I called the registrar to reset them, but no one answered. I know right? Struggle. So I took two students up to the registrar and another one drove with their parent - only I sent the student and parent to the bursar's office and not the registrar. Struggle. So the student and her mom had a pretty rough day, thanks to yours truly. Not to mention the fact that after the fact, no one understood why I took the students down there. So I just felt kind of worthless. Then there were so many questions during registration - and I kind of felt overwhelmed because I felt like I was on my own. Then, folder stuffing started to stress me out. Side note: I'm bad at folder stuffing. The one thing I didn't want to do was stress myself out unnecessarily because I had already done that today. So I just let myself fall behind and I went at my own pace. And you know what? It felt damn good. While today may have been a struggle, I can feel myself growing accustomed to the OL role and what my role is on the team and how to handle small groups. I'm trying to get excited for tomorrow, because tomorrow is Day 1 again.

Orientation!

So I start this blog on the advice from a friend. This summer it should cover mainly Orientation at the University of Georgia, but it will probably cover my weekend escapades as well. Maybe into the fall if I keep my life spicy. Let's bring you up to speed.

I moved into Creswell Hall two weeks ago from today. Training week aka "Hell Week" consisted of meetings with department heads and the like from about 8 AM to 4 PM followed by practicing our introductions and/or our "First Year Experience" skits. Dinner followed, usually around 6 PM, which was followed by Orientation Live! script writing/intro choreography until 2 or 3 AM. That was pretty standard across the week. Our team rocks. We work really well together, and we all kept up with each other to make sure everyone was heard and represented. I'm really proud of the way we got through that week and how well everything turned out.

Last week, we had one transfer session and our first first-year session. Transfer session - not much needs to be said. First-year Session 1? Skits/intro success. Group discussion? I could've done better. I wasn't really sure what exactly I should be doing and I felt kid of awkward. Also, housing and Oasis discussions were kind of ratchet. Note: don't joke about alcohol with parents and don't mention fiber/toilet paper during housing discussion.

Today was a good day. Got along with all of the students really well and everything just seemed to flow. Great conversation, students seemed to like me? Nothing was forced and the students really listened to me. This is what leading orientation is about. I'm super energized and super excited about tomorrow. Not much will be going on, but I'm gonna try and make it count while session 2 is still here.