Today is Tuesday, August 16th, and my third day of training as a new Resident Assistant in Read. There are 18 RA's and one CUE here. 12 RA's plus the CUE are new, with six RA's returning from last year. We, quite literally, have training all day. We begin at 8am and have been ending sometime around 9pm. The managers and supervisors have been shoving an awful lot of information into our brains over the past few days, and we've barely begun. It is very exciting and I'm having a lot of fun, but it is a lot to process.
I really like the rest of the staff and we seem to be getting along well, so far. Within the large staff, we have been broken up into three small staffs, consisting of six RA's and one of the GS's (graduate supervisors). Yesterday during our small staff meeting, we talked about religion for a little while, and I was thrilled to hear that spirituality/faith plays a part in all of my coworkers' lives. I was suddenly and acutely reminded God has orchestrated our staff the way it is for a reason, and I'm excited to see where this year will take me.
So far, we have mostly been listening to many different lectures/speeches and participating in discussions or group activities. For example, yesterday, we listened to a guest lecturer from ISU talk about social class and how it affects students' chances in college and in the future. I don't think I agreed with everything the professor said, but some of it was pretty interesting (albeit long-winded). Earlier today, we learned a little bit about the Incidents teams during a breakout session in which we had to address a mock-up of vandalism. It was more hands-on than some of the other things we've been doing, and I found the conversation really interesting. We're also working on a skit right now to be performed Friday.
Additionally, we received our Collateral assignments today, and I'm very excited to say I'll be working with Read's Adopt-a-Nonprofit, which this year is the BPP! As a theatre major and former Director of Philanthropy in my previous res hall, I'm really looking forward to this assignment. Basically, I'll be working with another RA underneath a GS to help BPP out with whatever they need- advertising, marketing, arranging meetings, and getting our residents involved. Weeeeeeeee!
We also spent a lot of time today talking about programming, and I have tons of ideas. I can't wait to start working on some of them! I definitely want to have a dance party at some point in time. (:
Tonight, we were supposed to go to the pool, but somehow our reservations got messed up, so instead we've had a "free" night since about 6 o'clock. I decided to go to dinner with two friends outside of Read, and the time away from discussions, handouts, procedures, policies, and ice breakers was really valuable. I'm still extremely tired, but I feel more mentally sharp than I did earlier during the day. Tomorrow, however, we're starting bright and early again. I'm hoping to get a lot of work done on my bulletin board, which needs to be up by Saturday at 5pm, along with my door decorations.
I think that's a pretty fair summary for the first three days. The journey begins
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