July 29, 2008

Metamorphosis Part 1: Killer Bees

Hey Oh Everyone!

We had a killer time at our summer retreat this past weekend. There are like a bazillion things that happened so I will break up the time into a few blogs. First up to bat is the wicked awesome first day. 

Getting up at 5:00 AM is awesome in itself, but then packing five cars worth of luggage into four and getting ready t drive 9-10 hours made it glorious! I really thought that we were going to have more room than we did, but we fit everything in the vehicles. One thing that didn't fit was my guitar. :( but that ended up being a really cool thing, that I'll talk about later. 

The drive up was pretty uneventful, besides the "watermelon crash" on I-75 that stopped up traffic for half an hour or so. (short story: truck full of watermelons+ speed+wobble=1000 gallon watermelon mush smoothie on I-75.) But once we passed ATL the scenery became more and more beautiful. We rolled into town near 5 and found the cabin and began the fun!

The first night there we found out that our campsite had 3 lb killer bees! Well at least by the time the story gets around Im sure they will be that big. But in reality our campsite had quite a few "bee" looking things hovering all over the ground. (I scoured the internet for a few hours to find what it was, but rest assured they weren't yellow jackets). So a few students were stung and thus we found our nemesis for the duration of the summer retreat.

Besides a few nature woes our city slicker students fared pretty well. I was actually a little proud of them by the end of the trip. Most of the students stayed in the tents, but some chose to brave the air-conditioned cabin. But, all in all, I think we all had two fistfuls of fun. 

I think the first night the students weren't sure what to expect, but since I forgot the guitar we actually started the first session with a few minutes of silence. I told students to close their eyes and just sit. I did not realize how cool this was going to be. There were no snickers or fart noises. The students really spent time in silence. I know it has been quite a long time that I have just sat in silence. Silence is a really heavy discipline that I have barely grasped...

Woah!? This has turned into quite a long blog, so I will cut it short, but I have a few more coming up and Ill let you know a little more about the trip. until then ttyl!!