"Anybody want some floor fruit?"

Country fried steak

Today was the first day of orientation. We had breakfast at 9am. Unadventurous yet again, I opted for Cap'n Crunch. Even though it wasn't much, it was still delicious.
After breakfast, we headed across campus to the MLC (or SLC as many of the older UGA students call it). The MLC is where we spent our entire day, excluding meals.
For the first portion of the day, we did a few ice breakers and then went over rules and expectations. The ice breaker we led was called the Handshake Game. (How original, right?)
We partnered up 6 separate times and came up with 6 different handshakes. The objective is for us to remember the handshakes throughout the term and eventually teach the handshakes to other staff members. It was a lot of fun and helped everyone get to know each other.
Now, I can't take credit for coming up with this game. I learned about this during Campus Life Staff training last year when we went on a retreat at West Chester University. It went over so well that I wanted to try it on a new staff and you know what? It was awesome.
After the rules and expectations, we headed to lunch. I tried Country Fried Steak and rice. It was pretty darn good. It tasted a lot like salisbury steak, which apparently is pretty similar. I also made myself a cookie sandwich with vanilla fro-yo in the middle. It was amazinggggg.
Once we finished lunch, we headed back to the MLC for more staff bonding.
We split into Residence Life and Academics to get to know our individual staffs better.
Sarah came up with a bunch of "Minute to Win It" challenges. My team's name was Shark Bait Ooh Ha Ha. We had a good time coming up with our name. One of the challenges I participated in required myself and another teammate, Olivia, to reconstruct a Cap'n Crunch cereal box with just masking tape and the pieces of the box. It was pretty funny. We won the challenge. I guess 4 years at as an art major paid off =P.

I also participated in a challenge called light as a feather where myself and 2 other teammates. We had to blow a feather across the room and into a bucket. Unfortunately, we did not do well with this... I wound up eating the feather by accident.
We had another challenge called Bite Me. 5 of us had to run across the room (one at a time) to grab a bag, without using our hands. Instead, we had to use our mouths and run back. It was a relay. We were pretty close to winning, but I was the anchor and was a millisecond behind. It kinda sucked.
Our last challenge was called How's It Hanging. It was pretty embarrassing, but so funny. I had to tie a banana around my waist and swing it between my legs to move an orange across the room. Then, my teammate, Kris, had to do the same thing. I had a slow start, but we wound up winning the challenge and then the whole game. It was awesome. Go Ooh Ha Ha!
After the challenges, I asked everyone if they wanted the floor fruit, but no one took me up on my offer. (And for good reason, probably.)
After the challenges, we went over more policies as Residence Life. It was boring, but I definitely have a better grasp on the position.
At 3:30, the Academic Staff rejoined us to go over more policies and for a CSI activity. We had to figure out different student scenarios and figure out how they were connected. It was challenging, but it made a lot of sense.
We headed to dinner at 5pm. Diamond, Ginny, and I all headed to Snelling, but quickly discovered that dinner was supposed to be in O-House, a dining hall I hadn't been to yet. Luckily, Ginny was with us and took us over to O-House.
O-House was AMAZING. THEY HAD A FREAKING HIBACHI BAR IN IT! Obviously, I decided to get chicken stir fry, which was FANTASTIC. I foresee a lot of stir fry in my future...
I grabbed a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone on my way out. This summer is going to be rough if I don't work out...

After dinner, Diamond and I headed to the staff lounge to work on some residence stuff. I partnered up all of my students and made their name tags. I am really excited for them all to arrive on Sunday.
Around 8PM, we headed down to the piano room to play ultimate werewolf. (Basically, it is mafia, but with werewolves.) We had a good time. It was complicated to understand in the beginning (so I am not even going to try to explain it...), but we had fun. Unfortunately, I died both times by werewolves, but it was still funny to watch the game unfold and everyone lie to each other about being werewolves.

Now we are sitting in the staff lounge watching Mean Girls. Diamond, Terrance, Mayowa, and I have been quoting the entire movie and it is so great.
Tomorrow, I have breakfast at 8am. It is going to be rough....
Until next time,
A