First off, I went to a retreat called 48 Hours during the first weekend of February. It's a retreat especially for freshmen, where we discuss social issues connected with the transition to college. I really did NOT want to go on this. While it had seemed fun and everybody had given great recommendations, this was the weekend before culture show and I had way too much I needed to get done. I almost backed out at the last second, but alas. The trip started off okay. It was about what I expected, lots of icebreakers and intense talks in small groups. My group leader Lainey was awesome; she's a senior who studied abroad in Florence last year, and she's extremely nice and honest, and unashamed to bring up topics. She led the discussions in good directions, and I enjoyed being under her guidance. My group was okay as well, even though several people didn't talk at all. Friday night and Saturday passed slowly, without any exciting news.
And then, we got free time. We were at a hotel in Brewster, right on Cape Cod and only a few thousand feet from the beach. For all you West-Coasters, you NEED to go to a beach during winter. The place, was absolutely gorgeous. We took a rickety wooden path through some forest, and we got to the Atlantic Ocean. The snow was piled up about 4 feet high, but since this weekend was so warm (as in, in the 40s lol) parts of it had melted and formed glacier-like things, making the beach look like some mini Antarctica. We had to jump from glacier to glacier to get anywhere near to the water, which we didn't anyway since it was low tide haha. It looked something like this:
So after seeing this gorgeous beach and some really insightful private journaling time, the weekend was finally worth it. There was also this great speaker who is a Theology teacher at Boston College and he teaches Buddhism. I am TOTALLY taking his class next year. One thing that bothered me though was that all the people on the trip completely epitomized the stereotype of BC students. We each had a chance to share our stories, and all of these ex-valedictorians, ex-football captains, ex-wrestling captains, ex-city council teen members, got up to say their bit. All their stories went like this: My life was perfect in high school and my dream school was Boston College (or Notre Dame, or Vanderbilt) but I got deferred and I was so sad, and then I got waitlisted, but now I'm here and at first the transition was SOO hard because everything was different from home but now everything is perfect and I'm SOO glad I came on this retreat. I love my life!!! Happily ever after. The fact that everybody said this was really ridiculous to me...When I was listening I couldn't help but think that they were all insane, because personally I still harbor thoughts about transferring. I guess I was just a bit disappointed by the confirmation of the cookie-cutter student.
I guess from 48 hours, although I was sick and exhausted, I did get something real out of it. I didn't expect to cry while writing in my journal; I thought I had resolved to be happy at Boston College no matter how much I missed home. It's been a rough start of a semester, dealing with stuff from home and also just homesickness, but I didn't even want to acknowledge how unhappy I was. Although it sounds cheesy, I felt a lot better after I finally admitted to myself that I still do kind of want to transfer. I guess in my determined state to be happy, I refused to let myself be sad and it just got a lot worse. Ironically, after I finally addressed my problems, things have started looking up. I don't know if the retreat was worth the $100 and lack of sleep, but I guess looking at my current emotional state and the mess I was 2 or 3 weeks ago, I'm glad I went anyway.
I can't wait to see that you take Buddhism class.
:-)