We arrived on June 3rd, fresh faced and eager, ready to take on the challenges of running such an extravagant event as orientation. We hit the ground running as soon as we got there. Every day was filled with campus info sessions, meetings with the deans, event assignments, and campus luncheons. Somewhere in there we met our French interns, Solenn and Adele. They are college students from France interning for New Student Programs this summer, they are both wonderful and I notice their English getting better and better every day. Here is Solenn, holding a lobster, with Adele in the background:
This picture brings me back to what I was about to mention: our retreat at the Darling Marine Center. The Darling Marine Center is a portion of UMaine located in Walpole where marine biology students can do a "semester at sea". We did an overnight retreat there on June 8th and 9th. It was so much fun and the facility is amazing. We got to go on a boat ride and catch all kinds of creatures in a big net. When the net was brought back in we spent a half hour just pawing through all the sea junk and finding lots of cool stuff--little lobsters, eels, crabs, and my personal favorite, the sea cucumber. That night we had a campfire and heard the many ghost stories at UMaine, which REALLY freaked a lot of people out, but not me...I actually think they're pretty cool stories. The next morning I got up earlier than I needed to and had some time to kill so I went and sat outside by the water and read my book, which was a really nice way to relax and start the morning. Once we got back to campus it was business as usual as the first orientation was approaching fast! On Friday June 12th the day arrived! The 3 sessions this past weekend went very smoothly, I met a lot of really awesome first-year students and had a ton of fun. I have, however, really enjoyed these past 2 days which we had off. Tomrrow we set-up and Friday we start all over again with 3 more sessions. Monday after orientation I head home and start work at child care on Tuesday morning. I'll be tired, but that's alright.
Anywho, here's some more pictures--
Some of us at the Darling Marine Center:
Me & Alex and our "big buddy", Ryan:
Some ladies at banquet:
Student Ambassadors doing the "Call on Me" dance for first-year students at one of the orientation bonfires:
Okay, until next time....later, gators!
