Today's Been a Day...

That has been the theme of this last week of Term I. Every day was pretty damn hectic. Our theory was that since we had a fairly good first two weeks, hell was breaking out week three. Here's a recap of the week:


Monday: I hosted IPhoneography as an evening activity with twenty-four TIPsters. They were extremely confused by my directions of "bring your cell phone and water to the 2nd floor laundry room lounge space."
"Are we going to be doing magic tricks?"
"Are we going to solve mysteries?"
"PLEASE JUST TELL US WHAT WE ARE DOING!"
TIPsters are so impatient sometimes.
Once everyone came back with their supplies, I introduced myself and gave them a brief background of myself. (Allee, RLC, graduated from a small, liberal arts college, majored in photography, yadda yadda yadda...) I did a short introduction of IPhoneography and showed examples of images I've taken with my IPhone. After the brief lecture, we headed outside to take some pictures. We walked throughout South Campus and went to the Trial Gardens. The TIPsters loved the freedom they were getting while photographing. (I wasn't hawking them and wanted them to have some creative liberty with their images. I didn't want to take away from what inspired them.)
Once we returned to Myers, the TIPsters used some of the editing apps I had recommended during the introduction and showed me their creations. They had a blast with this activity and a few TIPsters told me it was their favorite of the entire term. I'd call that a win!
Later that night, I had a few staff members call me about some strange, inappropriate noises coming from a room while they were completing rounds on night duty. I came upstairs to get filled in on the full story and then called the OSD since it was happening on the male floor. Unfortunately the issue remained a mystery until the next day because the students were asleep and did not answer the door.

Humane Society Field Trip

Tuesday: I spent my morning playing with cats (and puppies). I drove for the Vet Med field trip to the Humane Society, my favorite field trip of each term. Unfortunately, this trip resulted in sending a student to the ER for fainting. Luckily, there were more than a few extended admin members on this trip so we were able to handle it all.
Once I got back to Myers, I sat in on a few awkward conversations with TIPsters about inappropriate noises on Monday night. While in the meeting, a student was sent to the clinic for falling out of a tree. (Yes, you read that correctly...)
The rest of the day was as follows: more awkward conversations. Admin meeting. Dinner. Another awkward conversation. Small evening activity fiasco because an RC had to take a student to the clinic. Another freaking conversation. Another student to the ER. Parent phone calls. Sleep?

Wednesday: After the two days of hell, I needed a day off. I slept in, went to lunch, and then headed to a waterfall with two of my RCs. We were originally heading to Panther Creek Falls (a 7mi hike), but stumbled across signs for Tallulah Gorge on our way there.
Tallulah Gorge was gorgeous (see what I did there?). Even though we were caught in a torrential downpour at the start of our hike, we had a blast. Despite having to climb up and down over a thousand steps and having a small asthma attack, I made it through the hike. I really enjoy this and hope to hike a bit more while I am here.
When we got back to Myers, we got changed and ran over to trivia at the Blind Pig with a bunch of people who had off. We started off strong in 1st place, dropped to 2nd, and finally ended in 4th place.

All good things come to an end. At least there was beer!

TIP Prom 2k15: Term I

My fabulous date and I

Thursday: OSD's day off: Shit hits the fan. One of the students had Prom taken away from them as punishment for an outburst (multiple occurrences led to this decision). I went to help set up for Prom, spoke to my staff about their RC group meetings that night, and then headed back to Myers. We decided to give the student the option to go to Prom since they were a 4th year and improved since the conversation earlier in the day.
At the end of Prom, a student was feeling dizzy, nauseous, and was complaining about being elbowed in the head earlier in the night. Sadly, this resulted in a trip to the ER. Our OSD was at Prom and offered to go to the ER with an RC and the student.
Since the RC was at the ER, I had to put their kids to sleep. These students became my adopted RC group since I put them to bed every night with their RC.

After lights out, I met with my staff on the balcony to discuss the rest of the term. Once the meeting was over, I headed to my room to relax. Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep knowing that staff and students were in the ER.

Friday/Saturday: The RC that was in the ER turned 21 while they were there. (Great way to ring in your 21st, right?) When I got into the office, a ton of cars were being used for field trips and multiple trips to the clinic. I was supposed to take the newly 21 RC on driver training, but sadly there were no cars.
As soon as a van returned around 11AM, driver training began. Not so surprisingly, the RC passed, meaning we gained another driver for IHOP. YAY!
I spent the rest of my day in the office distributing Termbooks and organizing the moving of rooms for RCs (surprise, everyone has to switch floors since there are too many male TIPsters next term!). I also finished the slide show for the Talent Show during this time, but that wasn't too complicated. I went to dinner early with the Talent Show committee and students in the show, headed to Tate to help set up, and then prepped for my awesomely bad performance in the show with a few other staff members.
The Talent Show ran smoothly. I was able to sit in the back of the room and work on my staff evaluations, which I completed. (Thank you fourth year speeches.)
Once everyone returned to Myers, I went to the kitchen to bake gluten-free chocolate chip cookies for my staff to thank them for an awesome term. At 12AM, I went to the piano room to await the fourth years going to IHOP.
We carted all the fourth years to IHOP, with multiple trips there and back, and finally sat down at a table around 12:45AM. The staff grabbed to-go orders for the RCs back at Myers who weren't in attendance. We spent most of our time at the table joking around with one another because we were all so sleep deprived.

IHOP selfie

When I finally returned to Myers, it was almost 4AM. Just in time for the first load of students to leave. I was told I fell asleep on a couch until my staff came downstairs for a quick meeting at 5AM.
The rest of the day was a blur. I remember drinking a Red Bull, which did indeed give me wings, and then getting yelled at by an angry parent. Once the last student was picked up around 3:45PM, all remaining staff members were sent to bed.
Around 7:30PM, everyone met up to go to Cali and Tito's for dinner. (I still had yet to sleep because I knew I would be out for the night if I actually laid down.) After Cali and Tito's, a few people got together for drinks. Aside from a little mishap, it was a nice night. I was up until about 2:30AM with a few staff members, handling a chaotic situation. I decided that instead of waking up at 8AM to leave for South Carolina, I would sleep in as long as I could and just relax in good ol' Myers over intersession. (It was over 48 hours since I actually slept so it was probably for the best.) So much for a vacation.

Today kicked off intersession. I slept until 1PM, skyped with a good friend at home (miss you, Billy!), and then went to see Ted 2. (Definitely not as great as the first, but still pretty funny.)
The rest of the evening is up in the air. There's talk about heading downtown or watching a movie in the piano room. I'm kind of looking forward to a low key night, considering how hectic the last week has been. I'll be sure to update periodically over this week, but I hope to not think about TIP for a few days.

 Here's the video from our lovely talent show performance!