Sunday, August 17, 2008

Day 1

Today began the first day of our two week journey in Denver. Luckily April, another student participating in the program, and I were on the same flight so I had someone to talk with during that and check-in. The Denver airport was very impressive and the weather felt amazing. There is an extreme lack of humidity here. 
After a relatively short shuttle ride we arrived at Regis University where we immediately began the check-in process. During the check-in we were given a brand new shoulder bag with informative brochures and books related to the program. From there April and I made our way to our separate dorms. I was excited because this was the first time I would be staying in a dorm room for more than a couple of days. 
After I unpacked all my things I received a text message from Professor Jasperson to meet her in the main building at four. After the brief meeting April and I met up with Peter, another student from UTSA, and had a small dinner. It was really exciting to be given the chance to meet all the new people. 
We were told about a mandatory orientation that did not sound interesting in the least. Although it wasn't very informative it was a lot more interesting than I had originally thought. The "icebreaker" exercise was a fun and easy way to meet new people. We were given a grid list of certain activities and we were supposed to find who had done those activities, which included "jumped off a bridge", "dated someone you met online", or "been to Bangkok, Sydney, Jakarta, Krakow, Vilnius, Johannesburg, or Cairo". We also heard the national anthem of India, Mexico, England and Liberia, sung by nationals of those countries.  
Then the opening speeches began. We heard from one of the priests of the university who gave an interesting speech. "Politics is the art of possibility" was one of his key points. That was a quote that really stuck with me. 
Despite some funny and well spoken introduction speeches the orientation became a little too redundant. Afterwards we made it back to our dorm rooms to get some rest.
This first day was a good one. It has become obvious that this experience will be so much more than I had first thought. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
That will do it for tonight.
-Matt Shelton

1 comment:

Ann Eisenberg said...

Hey, Matt, glad to see you all arrived safely! All of us here in the Honors College will be watching your adventures!