Training week!

The RAs began arriving last Friday evening.  With students arriving from all over the world to a relatively small place we have to be much more flexible about arrival times of RAs (ALL students for that matter.)   I met the RAs for the first time last Saturday when we took them bowling at the mall down the street from campus.  Only 9 of the 16 RAs were there...it actually ended up being a nice in that I learned that group's names and then more the following day and the day after that as well!  (We still have one who hasn't arrived, she should get here tonight or tomorrow.)

The Res Life team bowling!

I'm in the back with my RDs...it's Becky, me, Veslava, and Alex on the left side.

The rest of the week has been busy juggling RA training, Intercultural Programs Leader (IPL) training, and Student Orientation Session (SOS) training!  I also have found that as the DCL I have to do a fair amount of public speaking to various groups of students as they arrive on campus.  So, I've been spending a lot of time editing the previous DCL's speeches to make them more "Susie" while conveying the appropriate information.  It's been a little stressful, but each one seems to have been well recieved by the students and my boss (who sat in on the one today) said that she thought I did a great job!

Today was Serve Day.  For those of you familar with Goshen College (where I previously worked), you have likely heard of their Celebrate Service Day...Serve Day is like that, but only a half day and the only students here are student leaders and freshmen.  We do a lot of projects on campus to help ready the campus for the start of school.  I was the leader of a group of freshmen - the group of students that I will be teaching this fall in my First Year Seminar class.  We were in charge of cleaning the bleachers in the gym...scraping off gum and then sweeping & mopping them.  It wasn't a hard job and allowed us to visit while we worked.

This most of my FYS class!

At the end of Serve Day the entire campus gathers together for a hot dog bbq.  It was a fun and DELICIOUS meal!  I had a Lithuanian style hot dog for the first time.  I was a little skeptical, but enjoyed it.

Me with my Lithuanian hot dog..topped with

sliced cucumbers, marinated onions, ketchup, and mustard.