I'm a College Kid

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Honduras Day 11.

Journal Day 11, May 23, 2013

Little did we know when we woke up this morning that today would be a day filled with all sorts of adventures! The day began with breakfast at 7, which consisted of cornflakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, the random grilled cheese thing, and juice. Then, we all loaded into 2 vans to begin our drive to the 2 rural schools we were visiting for the day!

We drove for a long while on some less than adequate roads way out in the country when all of a sudden we came upon a small river of sorts, covered with rocks and filled with cattle drinking! The vans came to a standstill to try to figure out what to do. Should we go around? Should we go through? We didn’t know! But finally the driver decided we could make it if we drove through, and drive through we did! Aidan, Jenny, and Lindsey actually walked across the rocks, but the rest of us enjoyed our adventure through the water. After we got passed the water, we were stopped by a cow just chilling in the middle of the road. It wouldn’t move when we honked, so the other driver had to get out and shoo it away!

Finally, we arrived at the second rural school, which I’m not sure what the name was. However, just like the first rural school we visited, it was very small. There were only around 19 students there, and they too were all in one classroom. Our project for this school was to make little flower pots with flowers out of paper and plastic cups and popsicle sticks. Lindsey explained the project in Spanish, and then we got to help the students decorate and assemble their pots. The kids were so excited to make their pots and then to play, Pato, Pato, Ganzo with us, or Duck, Duck, Goose. One of the little girls kept asking me if we would play with her, but I had no idea what she was saying because I didn’t know what it was! I had to have Eloisa translate for me! But all the kids joined in, and it was fun to run around and play with them! It was sad when we had to leave, but we got back in the vans and continued driving. We stopped in a tiny little town so Eloisa could by us some plátano chips, or plantain. They were salty and delicious and our van ate almost an entire bag!

On the way to the last school, our van decided it would be fun to spice up the ride a little bit, so we made up a little dance to pass the time. It was really simple and fun! We performed it to “Temperature” by Sean Paul for Eloisa, and she loved it. She and JoAnn said we needed to do it for the class we were about to see, so we did as soon as we got there, and it was really funny!

The 3^rd rural school we visited, Escuela Rural Mixta Dionisio Herrera, was about the same situation as the other 2 schools. It was small, this time with around 24 or so students, and all in one small classroom. But the students were so darn cute! Our project here was to make paper bag puppets, and I explained it to the class in Spanish! I had practiced it in my head (and mumbling under my breath) a couple times before so I felt pretty confident when I was in front of the class! I even made them laugh a little when I used the paper bag puppet to talk to the class, so that was fun. We went around and helped the students glue yarn and googly eyes and feathers to their bags and it was so cute! We played Pato, Pato, Ganzo with these students as well, and then we had a little dance party to “Gangnam Style!” Before long, we had to leave that school too. All the students gave us hugs goodbye, and just like for the other schools, I was happy we could help those students have a little fun and give them lots of new supplies and food.

Our next stop was the mayor of the town’s Pupusa restaurant, Doña Teresa. Her pupusas (basically a corn tortilla-like bread with cheese and sausage or beans inside) were sooooo delicious! I ate 3 of them and downed a Coke! Afterwards, Doña spoke to us (with Eloisa translating) about her background and how she helped to settle the town. She is an amazing woman! She helped start a program where everyone in town would learn how to read and write, and then she brought electricity, running water, and plumbing to the town, and now she’s working to have more tourists come through to support some of the artisans of the town. It’s really cool because the town only consists of about 42 families! Not only that, but I then found out she was one of my student’s (Noé) grandmother! It was really cool.

We drove back to campus after that and had the choice to go to ABSS for about an hour or stay at the Kellogg Center to chill. A couple of us, myself included, went to school since it’s the second to last day to see our students. They weren’t expecting me since we had thought we would be gone all day, but their faces lit up as I walked into the classroom and they saw me. It was so precious, and I have no idea how I’m going to leave them tomorrow!

Everyone met us at ABSS at the end of the day so that we could all go to Jovenes en Camino, a boys’ orphanage nearby. ABSS has a teacher who helps run the partnership they have with the orphanage where ABSS students visit the orphanage weekly to play with the boys. Also, as I’ve said before, 4 of my students, Luis Fernando, Daniel, Cristian, and Norman all live there! When we arrived, we were so surprised at how nice the place looked! It was huge! There were a ton of different buildings, and they all looked very nice. We ended up playing soccer with the boys, which was fun despite the fact that I never played soccer in my life. Some of them were really good! The boys there are obsessed with soccer. Nearly all of them were wearing soccer jerseys of some sort, and they each had a pair of cleats to wear too. Norman and Daniel also showed us their room, which they share with Luis and one other boy. All they had was a bed and a desk to themselves in their room, and I can’t even imagine what it would be like to live like that. I know that some of the students actually still have parents that just aren’t able to take care of them, as is the case with Norman, whose birthday is tomorrow and his mom is coming to visit him. Also, Cristian and Luis acted embarrassed to talk to me, which was kind of funny, but Norman, and surprisingly Daniel, who is usually really shy and quiet, were really excited about it! It was precious. I found out that they actually do internships there, so guess what I’m thinking about…? J

We had dinner at 6, which was fried chicken, veggies, fries, and bread. I’m getting sort of tired of the dinners here, so I don’t eat much. But after that, we had class on the book, Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo. Jubin was able to come today, so he lead the discussion. We gave opinions on the book first, and then we had to role play a little in a debate about American business presence in Honduras and the corresponding effects on the campesinos. Lia and I were business owners who wanted to expand our relationships with existing Honduran business owners. It was kind of funny to listen to the debate because it was so difficult to comprehend sometimes, and we all laughed at each other’s ability to play their part. Unfortunately, class was supposed to end at 8 and didn’t end until around 8:30.

We had so much work to do, but Gustavo wanted to hang out with us, so Laura, Katie, and I went on a walk with him and Jeffry again. We talked a little bit, but then the guys realized that it was almost 10, which is their curfew! We walked quickly back to their residence hall, but some of their inspectors saw them before we made it back and said they would get demerits for being late. We felt really bad, but then we found out that the boys talked to the inspector and the inspector said that since we’re American, it was okay that the guys showed us around. We still felt bad though. They left us, and as we were walking back to the Kellogg Center, we were stopped by the guards, who (we think) told us that the tunnel to the Center was locked and we’d have to walk along the main road to get back. We had to back-track then, but we got stopped at another locked gate. We were so confused because we had been out at 10 before and nothing was locked. But there were 3 guards there too, and they were wondering if we were students (we think). We had a hard time understanding them, but I think they thought we were lost and that we couldn’t find our way to the Kellogg Center, so the guard just led us there and had another guard unlock the tunnel gate for us. It was really weird, but everything is okay!

One other tidbit that I find funny: one day when Norman was leaving from school, he said to me, “Adios, chica linda,” which means “pretty girl.” However, I thought he was saying “Chicalina,” so I asked Diego from 4^th grade what that meant. He said, “Are you sure it wasn’t chica linda?” So now he constantly calls me “Chicalina” which is kind of cute if you ask me.

It’s been a long day, and I can’t believe tomorrow is our last day at ABSS! I might cry!

Photos:

Rural school 2

Rural school 3

Pato, pato ganzo!

Road block

Banana chips!

Doña Teresa

Jovenes En Camino Orphanage

Norman!

Norman and Daniel, 2 of my students!

Wendy and Karen!

Breakfast (actually looks like breakfast this time, right?)

Pupusas!!!

Dinner

Honduras Day 10.

Journal 10 May 22, 2013

Today started as a regular day. We went to breakfast at the usual time and ate cornflakes, ham, an omelet, cheese quesadillas, fruit, and juice. After that, it was off to ABSS!

Becca and I started the morning Spanish period in the teacher’s lounge with Miss Lacey asking her questions about her experiences here in Honduras. One of our assignments for the courses we’re taking is to write about our teacher and his/her experiences. The things we learned from Miss Lacey were awesome! She is such an honest and open person, so she’s been a great first mentor. We asked her about her experiences in the States before she came here, her experiences while adjusting to culture here, and a lot of other things. It was really cool!

After our mini interview, Miss Lacey said Becca and I could do the math lesson again! The lesson was on counting by 100s by using boxes of paperclips with 100 paperclips in each box. When we taught the lesson, JoAnn came into our classroom to observe. Becca and I took turns explaining to the class what we were going to do and also took turns guiding the students through different strategies counting the boxes. Compared to the bean activity, the students really seemed to understand the activity and the lesson. We were surprised at all the different strategies the students used on the board, so it was really cool!

In fact, later in the afternoon, JoAnn talked with me and gave me some feedback. She said that I did a fantastic job with my part of the lesson today and that I seemed really animated, which was good to keep the students’ attention. Also, she said I seemed to be naturally good at standing up in front of the class. I felt honored to have that kind of praise for my first time really doing anything like that! She gave me a piece of advice too: When there is a student at the board, I need to make sure I still give attention to the class so that I don’t lose their interest. It wasn’t something I had really thought about, but it was good advice. So overall, I felt really good about the lesson.

Something else that was interesting about today was that the students played a 3^rd grade vs. 4^th grade capture the flag game! Although we have some speedy and athletic kids on our team, the 4^th grade beat us by one point! The students are all very competitive, so they were pretty mad that they lost.

Then, during first recess, an embarrassing and very awkward thing happened. So most of the girls on this study abroad trip think the librarian, Mr. Danis, is very cute. Some of us were sitting in the library and talking to some of the students, but periodically glancing over at Mr. Danis to see him peer up from looking down at his desk with his gorgeous eyes and give us his signature little smirk/grin. Well, Becca started taking creeper pictures of him while we were sitting at the tables and talking, but when she went to take one with my camera, the flash was on and he looked over and saw us! I started crying because I was laughing so hard, and none of the students understood what was going on, so they were asking why I was crying.

It was even worse at lunch. Since it was Wednesday, we only had a half day in the classroom because the teachers had professional development afterwards. So, we had a teacher appreciation luncheon with all the teachers in the multipurpose room to thank them for all they had done for us so far. Megan stood up and said a thank you, and then Laura did one in Spanish. We had the delicious tacos that we had the other day, and also some yummy cake: one was stress leches, and one was chocolate! It was really good! Also, Mr. Carlos, the music teacher, played some songs and sang to us! It was really neat! But anyways, to Katie and my good fortune, Mr. Danis sat at the table across from us, so the entire lunch we stole glances at him across the room. The problem was, he continued to make eye contact with us and every time he did we kept giggling like little girls. We really wanted to know how old he was, because it’s hard to tell if he’s younger or older than us. So we got Laura to join in on our plan: after lunch, we would go to the library and Laura would take a picture with the librarian and a teacher she works with a lot. Then she would just ask them their ages to see how old he was. Katie took the picture, and when Laura started asking about the pages, we started dying laughing! We had to turn our heads away because we didn’t want them to see us laughing. Turns out Mr. Danis is 19 years old, same as us! (Even better than that was that when Katie and I got on Facebook tonight, we had a Facebook inbox message from him!! We have no idea how he found us on Facebook since he didn’t know our last names, but I’ve been talking to him most of the night on Facebook chat! It’s fun because he doesn’t know English very well at all, so it’s all in Spanish. Surprisingly, it’s not as challenging as I would have thought to write to each other in just Spanish, but there are times when I have to pull out Google Translate J)

Well, after that excitement at lunch, we left to go to the pool, even though it was pretty cloudy and we thought it was going to rain. The students also had swim lessons today, so we got to see some of our students. Rather, we were splashed by our students! We read our books a little bit and studied a little, but we headed to the little stationary store to get some paper to make cards for our students for our last day on Friday. Becca and I worked on them tonight and we will finish them tomorrow. We then went to the little food store to get some candy for them as well, but I also bought a huge pack of Chiky’s, the little cookies Gustavo gave us yesterday. They were so tasty! They had different flavors too, so I think I’m going to have to buy some more.

But, it is 1 in the morning, and I must get some sleep! Goodnight!!

Photos (kind of out of order, but I'm way too lazy to change it):

My man, Norman ;)

Lunch; hooray for tacos!!

3rd vs. 4th capture the flag

Breakfast

Cake for lunch

Honduras Day 9.

My apologies for taking forever to post...there were issues with Internet and issues with my laziness :) But no worries, I didn't die!! So, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, Honduras Day 9:

Journal Day 9 May 21, 2013

Today was a tad different for us because we went to our first rural school!! We went to breakfast at 7:00 and had fruit, cornflakes, pancakes, and juice. Again, even though the honey isn’t something I’m used to eating on pancakes, they were so good!

We packed up all the supplies we had organized the night before and loaded them into the big van and car we were taking to Guayabiya, our first rural school that was about 15 minutes away from where we’re staying. I volunteered to take my suitcase to carry the food, but unfortunately, the wheel broke in the transfer process (sorry mom and dad…guess it’s a good thing I’m working this summer!).

When we got to the school, it was the most interesting thing. The school really was out in the middle of nowhere, right off the highway. We pulled into the school grounds and saw 3 small buildings surrounding a courtyard area. The buildings were small and slightly worn down, but they seemed to serve their purpose. After unloading all the supplies in a small room, we all got a warm welcome from the students sitting in the multi-purpose room when we walked in and sat down. Apparently, these students have been waiting for us to come all year! We couldn’t wait to start working with them and playing with them.

We all sat down as the guests of honor and found out that the students had a performance to put on for us! Some of the older girls got up front and said some poems for us in Spanish, which Eloisa so kindly translated. Then, the girls did a dance for us…to Gangnam Style! It was really cute and so awesome that they took time to get that ready for us. After that, the younger students put on a fashion show of sorts for us. They all walked in one and a time and walked around the room to music while striking poses and strutting their stuff. It was so cute!

The surprise came when we found out that we, too, would have to model for the students! So we all did the same thing: we walked around the room to music and struck some poses while the 26 students looked on and clapped and laughed with us.

After everyone settled down from all the excitement, we were instructed to pick a number, entre uno y trece, and do the activity that corresponded to our number. Some people had to tell a joke, some had to sing a song, some had to dance, and others had to model again. I had to answer the question, “What do you like about our country so far?” I tried my hand at answering in Spanish, so I told the students I liked the warm weather, swimming in the pool, the cats (of course), the schools, and the food. When everyone was done, we got a hand-made card or note from one of the kids. Some wrote letters, and others wrote song lyrics. It was really cute. We all danced together at the end, and they played, “Danza Kuduro,” a song we’ve all grown to like while here in Honduras, so we got really into it.

We did some art projects with the kids next. The teachers showed us how to make little flower pots with butterflies out of plastic 2-liter bottles, so we cut those out and decorated them with the students. In that activity, we were the students and the kids were the teachers, so they showed us what to do and we got to make them. They wanted to help out, of course. The kids had lunch when we were done with the projects, and we saw where their lunches came from. They each had a bowl with rice, beans, and tortillas. No meat, no dessert. Some of the moms of the students were the ones who cooked for them all, which is so completely different from the cafeteria that I was used to in my elementary school days. Not only was that different, but the fact that these students ranged from K-6, with a couple of 15 year olds with learning disabilities, were in the same classroom all the time! That is so different from what I’m used to, and I’m sure it is a huge challenge for the teacher. And yes, there was one teacher. We learned from the principal’s translated speech that the school has 3 tenured positions available from the government, but with so few students, the government might take them away from the school. Another thing we learned was that in the urban schools, everyone likes the Honduran Minister of Education because he’s encouraging students to stay in school through 9^th grade instead of just 6^th grade to get a degree, but it doesn’t work in the rural schools because students don’t see the need to go that long and therefore get no degree. It was just a really interesting perspective.

After lunch, we went back to the multi-purpose room to dance a little bit with the students. Then, it was time to start our art project with them! We decided that we wanted to make paper chains with them: 1 chain would be a personal chain that had goals the students had completed throughout the year, and the other would be a class chain with compliments written on each link so that if a student was having a bad day, they could pull a link off the chain and read it and feel better. There was a huge language barrier in that these kids knew almost no English, so Laura did an amazing job explaining the project in Spanish to them! We got to work helping them cut out strips of paper and writing on and decorating them. Some of the younger students didn’t really understand what was supposed to be on the chains (some wrote, “I have a dog,” and things like that), and others didn’t know the difference between their individual chain and the class chain, so we ended up just connecting all the chains! It turned out to be really cute though. Plus, it was awesome to see how excited the students were to have some new supplies! Construction paper, markers, scissors, and glitter glue were likely all novelties to these students, and we brought an entire box full of them!

When we finished with the projects, we all went outside with the students to play. I said, “Yo quiero bailar!” (I want to dance!) and some of the girls grabbed my hands and took me back to the multi-purpose room so we could all dance together. We then went back outside where all the students were running around and chasing each other with giant grasshoppers. A lot of the students just loved our cameras, so they went around taking a bunch of pictures with us. It was really sad when we had to leave because they seemed sad to see us go (although they did give us all goodbye notes that they made with their new supplies!) and one girl even asked me in Spanish if we were going to come back tomorrow! It was so sad to have to tell them no! But finally we had to leave even though we all wanted to stay longer, and we waved goodbye as we headed to ABSS for the afternoon.

When we got to the school, we had lunch, which was a baked potato and sour cream, chicken, salad, and rice, plus horchata to drink, which is like cinnamon rice milk. I’ve had it in the States before, but it was hot and this one was cold. We then spent the rest of the day in our regular classrooms. Not much happened in 3^rd grade, but we did go to music, so I got to see the students being crazy with all their instruments. I was also really happy because Cristian had been gone the day before and he was back today! I was so happy!

Nobody went to the pool after class today. Instead, at 4:30, Katie, Laura, and I met up with Gustavo and Jeffry to go on a bike ride! I wanted my dance partner, Juan, to come with too, but he had homework. He did let me borrow his bike though!

The guys took us all around the agricultural part of campus, which was really cool. We got to see some banana plants and some fields that use drip irrigation, and we saw the place where the baby cows live. We took a pit stop to get some mangoes (which the boys got for us by climbing a tree), and they also used their keys to cut some sunflowers off for us! It was so sweet! We rode down to this little lake too, where Gustavo pulled out some delicious cookies that tasted like the Girl Scout shortbread cookies with the chocolate on the bottom and some juice. We also all climbed up in a nifty-looking tree for no reason. Gustavo had told Katie he had a surprise for her too. He said, “You know how most guys give girls material things, like clothes and things? Well I wanted to give you all these experiences and I wanted to show you a Zamorano sunset at this lake, but the weather is bad, so it didn’t work.” It was seriously so sweet. We realized we were about to be late for dinner though, so we all took off and rode quickly back to drop off the bikes, except Gustavo and Katie were lollygagging behind and chatting. Laura and I kept teasing Gustavo because his nickname in English is “Quickie” and he wasn’t very fast. He told us that he got his nickname because he looked like an older student who had the same nickname, and the nicknames just all get recycled I guess.

We made it back for dinner a little late, but we had some good turkey, butter and garlic potatoes, bread, salad, and tamarino, the tea-like juice we had on the first day. And the best part? Strawberry ice cream for dessert!! It was fantastic.

After dinner was shower time and then journaling time! We can’t believe that we only have a few more days in ABSS! It’s so sad!!

Photos:

All the supplies we brought to rural school 1!

Working with the students

Dancing!

Students modeling!

Gangnam Style!

Taking pictures...with giant grasshoppers!

Rock on, Cristian!

Bike ride!

Banana trees!

Sunflowers!

Climbin some trees...so BA

Breakfasttt

Lunch

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Honduras Day 8.

A good day and a good night in Honduras today!!

Journal Day 8, May 20, 2013

It was back to the school today after a long day of shopping yesterday. We had corn flakes, fruit, scrambled eggs with peppers, sausage, and a toasted cheese sandwich for breakfast. The school day began a little differently than usual: on Mondays, every student in the school meets in the multi-purpose room for Acto Cívico, where the students sing the Honduran national anthem, the pledge of allegiance, and listen to announcements. It was really cute to see all the students together and singing!

We had Spanish this morning, and then a small recess where Becca and I practiced today’s math lesson. PE was next, and the students were playing soccer, so of course Becca and I joined in! We didn’t bring the right shoes, so we had to go barefoot, and I was running around in a dress! I was so dirty by the end of it!! But it was a lot of fun playing with the students, especially because they kept dancing in the field as a punishment every time the other team scored a goal. Soooo adorable!

Becca and I joint-taught a math lesson after PE and helped the students work on their assessments. I wish we were here longer so we could have more practice in front of the classroom, because I know we won’t get anything close to this in our blocks when we get back to Purdue. Two weeks just isn’t long enough!

We had lunch afterwards, which was a slab of pork with onions, carrots, potato salad, rice, tortillas, and watermelon juice. And then the horror came. We left lunch to go play recess with the students when we saw a bunch of the younger students pointing on the ground. We went over to check it out, and lo and behold, THERE WAS A DEAD TARANTULA LAYING THERE!!! We freaked out, naturally, because we had never seen a wild tarantula before! Only in a zoo or pet store! The kids just kept poking at it with a stick and it was so gross! Megan even picked it up with a leaf and brought it to JoAnn to scare her! Although we were all freaking out, the students kept saying they weren’t afraid and that they liked to put tarantulas in bottles and carry them around and show people. They said that a lot of tarantulas lived near the soccer field, aka the place I had just been playing soccer barefoot hours before!! Ahhh!! So we followed the students on their hunt for tarantula holes and we found a few. The kids said that the way to get them out was to pour water down their holes to drown them out, so us, being the idiots we are, did! There were a ton of students standing around and we poured bottle after bottle in the holes until finally we saw one start to crawl out of the hole! It was so disgusting. Then the kids graced us with the knowledge that snakes and scorpions just roam around Honduras too. Ew.

After that excitement, we had art with Mr. Carlos, the music teacher. Brian actually taught the lesson and the students had a lot of fun with drawing, coloring, and painting. Then, we went to the multi-purpose room to eat a cake that some of the students’ parents brought in for Miss Krisna’s birthday, the teacher aid. It was soooo good! It was a very moist white cake with fruit on top and Cool Whip-type frosting on top. Talk about delicious!

When school ended, Katie, Laura, and I headed straight to the pool (because for once I actually had my stuff with me), but everyone else headed back to the hotel. While we were there, some random guys came to the pool and were asking us questions about why we were in Honduras and how long we were there and such…You know, the basic, friendly stuff that people around her ask. However, these guys were creepy. Not in the, “I think they’re going to kidnap me,” type of creepy, but they were just creepy. One of them was 30 years old for goodness sakes! They kept asking if we wanted to play in a basketball tournament this Friday and we were like, “Uhhh, no.” And then we left.

Dinner was just the students tonight since Eloisa and JoAnn had dinner at a friend’s house. We had pork with onions like at lunch, as well as avocado and tomatoes and rice. I didn’t eat a ton because I wasn’t really feeling it, so I’m kind of hungry now. Laura, Katie, and I did some laundry then and helped to organize some more supplies for the rural school we’re going to tomorrow…can’t wait!

But the best part of the day came at 9, when the Zamorano students are done with their study hours. The 2 other girls and I walked to where Gustavo and his friends live to meet up with him to hang out for an hour before their curfew came at 10. However, before he came outside, some random guys came up to us and did the kiss/hug thing, and we were afraid that we met them at the party on Friday and couldn’t remember who they were! However, Gustavo came outside and we asked if we knew the guys and he said no, so we were really confused. But then we figured out what it was: Gustavo continually showed Katie off to his friends, saying, “This is Katie!”, like he’d told them about her before! It was really funny. But me, Katie, Laura, Gustavo, and his two friends, Jeffry and Juan (my dance partner) all went on a walk down near ABSS school. We passed by the basketball court and there were a ton of students standing in rows facing forward. We asked Gustavo what that meant, and he said that Zamorano has something called colonies where everyone from a country is grouped together (Honduras colony, Nicaragua colony, etc.) and they have certain rules to follow within their colony, besides those of the school. The students that we saw were apparently getting punished for not following the rules, and I guess if you do something really bad, you get excommunicated from the colony and nobody talks to you!

It seemed so extreme. It seriously seems like Zamorano is haze central though! Apparently all the 1^st year guys are called “dogs” and have to do everything the older students ask, such as cleaning their room or borrowing their bike or things like that. It’s so bizarre! They also call the girls here “spiders.”

We all hung out and chatted for awhile, looking at the whole 2 stars that were visible from where we were. It was a lot of fun, and there were a lot of laughs because the guys are so easy going. They also gave me some reggaeton artists to listen to since I’ve all but fallen in love with the music. However, 10 o’clock came rolling around, and the guys had to be back at their residence, so we started walking back. We passed by a 4^th year student (who are the “bosses” of the younger students) on the way back, so the guys told us that if they gave us any trouble, just say, “Estoy perdida!”, or, “I’m lost!” But we were fine, and we made it back with a minute to spare. It was seriously so much fun, and now the girls and I are just sitting out in the lobby and making lots of new Facebook friends and such! It’s a good time! We’re actually going to be able to go on a bike ride with them tomorrow (the guys are going to use their seniority to take some bikes from first years!)! Can’t wait!

Photos: