YFU Pre-departure Orientation

Hey everybody!

          This past weekend I went to Chicago to attend the National Pre-departure Orientation with YFU. It was such an amazing experience and the people are so friendly and awesome to be around. I can't wait to travel with them! So here is a bit about what happened during the orientation.

          The first day we arrived and we received a bucket with some rocks in it. Every time we put our bucket on the floor, forgot our bucket, or said something mean we received more rocks. Most of us quickly caught on to the dos and don'ts of owning our bucket. While we mingled in the lobby with other students, counselors would come up to us and speak different languages. As soon as they found out which language we spoke they would switch to a different language. This part of our arrival symbolized our arrival in our new home when everything is new and confusing. We were also split up into teams and I became good friends with the people in my pink team! That night we went to our classroom and did a maze trust exercise. The pink team eventually all made it to the other side of the room through laughs and some directions.

          The second day was just as great as the first, even though we had to get up at 6:45. We ate breakfast with our color teams. Once breakfast was finished we went downstairs to do some morning exercise. Once that was finished we continued on to our classrooms where we had class for the day. There we talked a lot about communication, being an American, and social media. All of these were very helpful, and informative. After our class time we ate lunch with our color groups and headed off to our cultural simulation. Many people were asking about it during lunch but no hints were given. Once in the classroom we were told to memorize the instructions to the card game at our table. Each table had different rules to the tournament. Each table differed in which suit/card was trump and whether or not aces were high or low. As the tournament went on the counselors started speeding up playing time and yelling at us for not moving fast enough. We discussed how this affected us and what it might symbolize in our new home.

          Throughout the weekend I learned so much about how different aspects of life will come at me in ways that I never thought about before. With all the help that the counselors gave me this past weekend I feel much better equipped to take on my adventure.

Thanks for reading!
Sandra