Leadership Retreat etc.

hmm..... I don't know what to type in here because it seems like millions of things happened within the span of three days. ok lemme start on Wednesday.

WEDNESDAY:

I woke up around 5 AM (I slept like two o'clock the night before). I got ready then left around seven. I arrived like 7:35-ish. i thought I was late but I wasn't. i registered, got my retreat stuff (including an ID and a nice folder which says the title of the retreat, "Leadership Rock"). After that, We loaded baggages in the buses. I sat with Minh on the bus but since i was so tired from lack of sleep, I slept half of the time. Destination: Camp Glen Lake in Glen Rose, TX.

When finally arrived 1 1/2 hours later (that's how long ivory told me it would take but I have no way of knowing since I slept, remember?) we got off, unloaded the stuff, got our cardkeys from Siceloff Hall and went to our respective rooms. I was assigned to Mabee 2 (Mabee Lodge, room 2). I just laid down my stuff and proceeded back to Siceloff. We were separated into groups. my group (Blue Team!) met at the nearby gazebo. After several minutes of brainstorming, we came up with the theme of UTAPD BLUE (from the show, NYPD BLUE). we also had a flag which we drew on the cloth provided. we used a mop handle and a wooden dowel for pole, stuck using masking tape. we formulated a chant also. As we enter the dining area for lunch, we were waving our flag and singing out chant. it was a cool feeling to make those things with people you barely know. just fun.

After Lunch, I went to the Educational sessions. there are five sessions that you can go to but you can only choose 2. My first one was about ethics and the other was about management. so far, they were cool and informative.

after two sessions (around 3:30 pm), we had a break. i took the time to nap in my room. I really needed the break. that's basically all I did. I woke up around five for dinner. nothing muh to say here. Some ppl don't like the food but they are fine with me.

After dinner, we had "Maverick Olympics" which seemed to be designed to make us puke food from our previous dinner. we had Sack Relay, Eraser Relay, Spoon-and-Egg Relay, Pass-the-Lifesaver-Using-a-Toothpick-in-your-Mouth, and lastly, Catch the Egg. By the end, Blue Team accumulated 75 points just like Red anf Green. Orange and Yellow were leading with 85. Blue team wasn't doing very good but I must admit, we are the team that are showing the best spirit. we sang our chant several times during the games that led to other groups retaliating with theirs. This ended with some ppl egging Chris. Im luckyI didn't get egged. That's one good thing that happens when you don't know that many ppl. I just walked towards the lodges because it was the organizational meeting time. I caught Ivory and Sandi but they said there's nothing to talk about. so we just haung out to chat. They kept teasing me to Minh as usual. We climbed a tree and took videos using Minh's videocam. When we were done, we went back to the Lodges. I freshened up. i showered and brushed then went to the Sandi and Ivory's room (Jones 4, i think) to play dominoes. Ivory was having a meeting with her Sorority sisters so I just had a chat with Sandi about UTA Volunteers' internal affairs (about the upcoming elections). it was nice because i have never chatted with her that way before. owell. Ivory finally came but it was time for the Casino night at Smith. we went and everyone was given 20 chips to use for gambling. How would I know how to gamble?! well, i just approached the table with the ppl I know most: Ivory and Sandi! They wre on the blackjack table. I watched till I got the hang of it. Sandi taught me how to play and I just spent the whole time there. there was a time I had almost like 50 chips but I bet almost all and lost. owell. They are just pieces of circular colored plastic anyway. After that, we went back to Jones lodge. I played a game of dominoes with Ivory then I taught Sandi how to play. They also are getting annoying. they kept teasing me with Minh. This is the point when I thought it wasn't funny anymore. They started to add sexual innuendo and stuff. haaaay..... owell. It was cool until their roommates started to pour in. Some of them were nice (I think the Carra girl is cute) but there was this intimidating girl that wants to go to bed so i opted to leave. basically, I just went to bed, tucked in my sleeping bag and that pretty much concluded my first day.

THURSDAY:

I think this is the most eventful day of the retreat. i got up around 7:45 (the alarms/cellphones in the room got off at the same time). I got ready and went to the Dining Hall. again, nothing much to say here. around 8:30, we met and talk finalized our chant it went pretty good. i really liked our group. Everyone was nice and very cooperative. Even we barely know each other, we get to know each other because we eat together. i would say that we really do have the greatest amount of "spirit." Anyway, the meeting went fine since we already have our chant before. we just finalized and practiced and talked about our skit. Then after this, I went to the educational session about Delagation by Greg "Condom Man" Bateson (To those who don't know him, you should read the article about him in the Renegade magazine). Nothing special here but Greg is funny. After this, we went to the Siceloff Hall again for the presentations of the chant and the flag. This is one of the Highlights. We post-finalized our chant and and presented. We got red team's "magic stick" an used it for our presentation. We later gave it back because they were pleading.

The next was the fourth educational session. I went to the one about leaving legacies in an organization. Dr. FM (one of the speakers) was kinda intimidating. I con't believe she was shy before. she kept pacing back and fourth and stares into ppl's eyes that made me uncomfy. She looks really nice tho. Maybe she just does that to impress us with her speech.

Here comes the highlight of the day. I was having lunch with our flag-bearer, jason (a great guy!) when Justin (a guy from the red team) breaks our flagpole in half and runs to he emergency exit. Jason quickly ran after him. Stunned, i took about 3 seconds to decide to run after them. Justin was about to throw the flag to the lake when i got a hold of it. Jason quickly came to help but we can't get it from his grip. Then, this huge guy from the Orange team came and helped wrestle the flag from our hands. Then, Apexa and Jordan (she's nice and pretty) helped us out but they won't budge. The Red team thought that we stole their "magic stick" again (tured out later that Yellow team got it). Neway, Let's just say it got to physical. The big Orange team guy started swiging it around. Apexa tried to grab his glasses to calm him down but guess what he did! he pushed her to the ground! This huge guy (about 250 Lbs), pushed a lady to the ground! i tried to grab on his glasses because i thought that it was beggining to get too rough but he grabbed my collar and pushed me to the ground like what he did to Apexa. I didn't fall or let go but he did a good job in crumpling my shirt and my I.D. after several seconds, the struggle was over (honestly, I dunno how it exactly happened) and the guy was just cussing Apexa out, calling her crazy and "not being able to control herself" (look who's talking). They let go and we got back our flag. Even Justin was surprised at what the orange guy did. We were tired but we got to go back to our lunch. We heard the orange guy tell his exaggerated side of the story that included we poking his eyes and trying to grab his balls. He seemd proud he pushed a lady to the ground! so very odd but very interesting.