The beginning of another blog!

So since I loved blogging about Spain so much, I thought I would start another blog about what is going to be a very interesting summer for me. While I was in Spain, I accepted a job via Skype with Iowa State University to be an RA (Residential Advisor) for TAG (Talented and Gifted) high school students. I have never worked with TAG or high school students before so I'm sure I'm in for a very different experience.

I arrived in Ames last Tuesday (July 5th) after celebrating a wonderful 4th of July at Okoboji with some of my extended family. I hadn't been to Ames since before I left for Spain (so about 6 months) so it's great to be back here at my home away from home!

Last Tuesday, I met the 6 other RAs (Christy, Aman, Anthony, Jake, Andrea, and Lauren.) Lauren is also my "suitemate." We are staying in one of the nicest and newest dorms on campus, called Martin Hall. When you open the doors to the rooms in Martin, it leads you to a small common area and bathroom and there are two more rooms inside. They are called "suites" and there are 4 girls or 4 boys in each "suite" (2 in each bedroom.) I'm very thankful to be living in this dorm as opposed to one of the older dorms like I did my freshman year here because many of them do not have air conditioning.

So all of last week, we had training and orientation for the staff. We basically sat in the den for 10 hours every day getting to know each other, planning activities, making "door decs" for our students, decorating the hall, organizing the office, etc. It was a pretty boring week and I hated sitting in that room ALL day and only getting up to go eat. I felt like I gained 50 pounds just in those 5 days! We had a couple nights off last week, and I got to visit Claire (my roommate in Spain) and Mariah, who also went to Spain with us and is living with Claire this summer. It was a little weird seeing them in America for the first time! I also spent more time with Claire on Saturday night (our last night off until this job is over in 3 weeks.)

Finally, Sunday rolled around and the students came!!! I was so excited because that meant that there would be more energy throughout this place and more things to do besides sit in the den for 10 hours every day. I'll come back to this day in a second.

So I'm assuming maybe some of you are wondering what an RA for TAG students actually does? Well, we live here in the dorms with about 70 high school students that come from all over. Most are from Iowa and Illinois, but I have one boy in my group from Reno, Nevada and another from Arkansas. All of the RAs have about 7-10 of their own students and this is a 24/7 job. We have to be up and ready to go by 7:30 every morning and we aren't allowed to go to bed until after we do "rounds" every night around 11 pm. This is a little difficult for me since I'm one who needs my 8-9 hours of sleep every night. The following is what a typical day will be like for me over the next 3 weeks:

7:30 - 8:15 - Eat Breakfast with the Students
8:30 - 9:30 - Walk students to class and run any errands for your class that you're assigned to (I'm assigned to Physics, which I happen to know nothing about.)
9:30 - 10:30 - Staff meeting
10:30 - 11:30 - Clean halls and other miscellaneous chores
11:30 -1: Pick up students from class, go to lunch, walk them back to class
1:00 - 4:00 - Plan afternoon and evening activities
4:00 - 5:30 - Pick up students from class and first round of activities
5:30 - 7:00 - Dinner
7:00 - 8:00 - Study hour
8:00 - 9:30 - 2nd round of activites
9:30 - 10:30 - Down time and "bed chats"
10:30 - Lights out for students

Yesterday, the kids arrived with their families between 1 and 3 pm and then we had orientation at 3:30 for the students, parents, RAs, professors, and other faculty. After orientation, we divided up our students into their RA groups, got to know each other, and went over the rules of the camp. After the parents said goodbye, we ordered pizza, then each RA group made a flag/banner, and then each student and RA decorated a brick which we will start using for door stops.

My group is... well.... interesting? I have 2 girls and 5 boys. A couple are pretty shy, one girl has OCD, Asperger's Syndrome, and a pretty bad attitude, and one of my boys is a commuter so he isn't staying in the dorms with us but he goes to class every day and is welcome to eat or do activities with us. He is probably the most interesting out of all my kids. Very very loud and hyper, but he's pretty hilarious. When I first met him, he came off really snotty and acted like he didn't want to be here. After I got to know him a little better as the day went on, I came to find that he's actually not a rude person at all. That's just how he is and he has a very different sense of humor. The only problem is that the girl with Asperger's does not like him one bit and isn't afraid to show it. I know that I'm going to have a lot of problems with them this week.

Another thing I should probably explain is that there are two programs going on here this next 3 weeks of OPPTAG. The first is called Cy-Tag and it's the full 3-week program where students take one class for 3 weeks and get credit for it. The other program is called Explorations and it's only a 1-week program where students can choose one "fun" class to take. They are also allowed to do Explorations more than once so they can be here 1, 2, or 3 weeks and take multiple classes. Some of the Cy-Tag classes include Chemistry and Physics. Some of the Exploration classes include Light & Art, Fun Aquatic Worlds, and Java Programming.

Today is their first day of classes and I just got back from walking them to their afternoon class. It was extremely hard to get up this morning and a couple students in my group were a little crabby, but we had a fun time a breakfast. While we were eating, I learned that there are way more "awkward animals" than the awkward turtle. If you don't know what the awkward turtle is, it's when you're in a very awkward situation or conversation and it gets quiet... then someone randomly says, "awkward turtle..." as they make a turtle with their hands. People started this when I was in high school, but now there are a lot more new awkward animals such as my favorite, the awkward swan. So next time you see me, ask me to do the awkward swan. It's awesome.

Apparently, it was pretty "awkward" over at the other table where I wasn't sitting, so they were going to play a card game since one student had cards with him. Of all games to play, they decided to play my absolute favorite and a family classic: SPOONS. So I told the students at my table that we should join them and we all played a few games of spoons at breakfast this morning. Everyone showed their competitive side (including myself.) Definitely the highlight of my day so far.

I'll try to write in this every couple of days or so and start taking some pictures so I can add those, too.

Enjoy!