Today, Wednesday, we had an outing! It was a team building event is all that we were told. We had to be ready to go and in the parking lot by 8am. They said wear clothes that you can get wet and dirty! HA! (that made me a little leary about this whole thing)
We all got on the bus and took off for this mysterious place. It was a 45 minute drive out into the wine country. We ended up at a Christian Bible Camp where they had this obstacle course that is AMAZING! We all loaded out of the bus and met our instructor. Her name was Mariska. She had us split up into partners and then we had to do this game where she would call out a word, like "Knight" or "Horse" or "chivalrous" and we had a position to get into with each word. So when she said knight, one person had to get down on one knee and the other would have to sit on the knee that was up...does that make sense? And then she would said horse and the partners would have to do a piggy back sort of thing. Then she would say chivalrous and the person would have to pick up the other person and hold them in front of them, kind of like when a groom carries his bride over the threshold of their house or whatever, you know what i mean. So anyways, she would call out these word and we would have to get into that position and the last person to get into that position was out until there was only one partner set left. It was silly and fun and we all laughed so much! It also was awkward. I just met this dude two days ago and now i have to get on his back. Strange for me.
After that, we walked over to the obstacle course. We were split into two teams. Each team had a bucket full of water. The point of the activity was to get across the whole course, without stepping off the course that was about 3 ft off the ground and without spilling the water out of the bucket. If you spilled you lost 2pts, if you touched the ground, you lost 2 pts. However, there were times throughout the course where Mariska would call out "Community" and we would all have to hold each others hand and connect in a line. The first group to get to this, would get to add two points. So therefore we could not get too far apart from each other. It was CRAZY and the course was super long. It took us about an hour and a half to complete the whole thing. There were 8 people on our team. That is a LOT of people to get through a whole course and then to not spill the water as well? Goodness! We ended up ending our game with a -6 point total, however the other team had a -28. They spilled their WHOLE BUCKET! HA HA HA!!!
After that we walked over to a big storage container and had to take our shoes off. We then were given 6 long round logs, 3 big drums and some rope. We then were told that we had 15 minutes to build a raft out of the said material. There were directions on how to assemble it, so that was nice. (again we are in our same teams competing against each other) My team was AWESOME! We got the raft completed and were just tying it off when Mariska said, "you have 7 minutes left, but i want you now to switch rafts with the other team" OH MY GOODNESS! They were horrible! Their raft looked like a 5 yr old had built it. Our had looked like it was professional! So now we had to give them our great raft and take theirs and do our bes tto fix the mess before the time was up. We did our best. Mariska then brought out life jackets and we had to put them on and take our rafts over the the pond. Now this pond was more like an oversized mud puddle. It was DISGUSTING! I put my hand in the water and let the water just cover the top of my hand and i could not even see my fingernail polish color cause the water was so brown. Anyways, so we each hd to put our rafts in the water and then get on them and paddle around a course that was set out in the water. We were supposed to do the course twice and whoever got done first won. So the other team (the nerds) put their raft in first (our old raft) and they sat down on it and were all settled by time we got in the water. Once out raft hit the water and the first person sat down, it fell apart. We then had pieces of this raft in our hands and we are all just standing there. Mariska said that we had two minutes to put it together but could not get out of the water. uuummm...not possible. We then realized that one of the ropes had broken off the drum so we would have to get another drum from the storage unit. So we hefted the raft back out of the water nad up onto the bank. We then took the next 10 minutes taking the whole thing apart and starting over like we should have done in the first place. We built another AWESOME raft! We got it in the water and then realized that our team (the scavenggers) had 8 people while the other team only had 7. So i volunteered to stay out. And then on the second time around the course i would switch with someone. So they did a count down and Mariska said "GO" and the teams were off! Sort of. I don't think that African's know how to row a boat/raft. It was HILARIOUS! After about a whole minute, both rafts were still in the same spot. They were just moving side to side. Eventually they got the hang of it and just as they started to move, Mariska said they could lose one person so that there were only 6 people on each raft. As my team started to take off, one of the guys on the other team decided it would be a good idea to stand up on the raft to try and balance it out. (later he said he thought he might weigh more if he stood. HA!) Once he attempted to stand, one of the drums came undone from the raft and everyone fell head first into the muddy water! ha ha ha ha ha ha...it was SO FUNNY! they pulled their raft aside and tried to re-tie it except they just tied it in random place. They then tried to get back on and all were dropped off the raft again! Apparently, when we had switched rafts in the beginning, they did not check to see that we had completed tying anything. Their fault! So after the second titanic episode, they gave up. They were told to bring the raft and all it's pieces out of the water. My team, had by then made it around once and were on their second time doing the course! I was their cheerleader along with one other fellow from our team. They did an awesome job! That was WAY not how the activity was supposed to turn out, but Mariska said that it's one of the funniest things that had happened.
We were all wet and happy and tired! We had a little chat about team work and then it was time to head home. We did the drive back and got back to campus just in time for some lunch. Then we had the afternoon off. It's now 5:00pm and i am SO TIRED! I am really glad we did not have classes after that! I think i will be heading to be early tonight!
Doing this event today has made our class one big family! It was great and worked like a charm! It's nice to know everyone so well now. I'm sad that our whole class was not able to make it. Hopefully when the rest of them arrive, we will be able to get them feeling like part of the family in a short time.
I will post pictures from today as soon as i am able to get them off the school website!
I hope you all have a great Wednesday as i'm just finishing off mine!
Heidi
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