Bree made us take a photo with a homeless man's dog

Day 2! I got up at 7:30 and got ready for the day. I then headed downstairs for a breakfast sandwich and popped into the Greek boutique before the opening session. I'm glad I did because I found out they can put the Panhellenic crest on stuff so I bought a new maroon quarter zip with the crest on the left side of the chest. It's my new favorite. It was also ready to pick up within 15min!

I LOVED my first institute session! It was a presentation by TJ Sullivan and he talked about how to motivate members of your organization based on how their personality types view incentives and values. I found it very helpful and it is definitely something that I will be able to bring back to AST and Panhel.

After the first institute session we had lunch and walked around the NGLA village. A couple of guys agreed to take our group photo and it turns out they were a couple of Phi Kaps which was exciting! A few minutes later Frankie and I ran into Gretchen Foran who is a friend of BSU because she helped start our AST and Phi Kap chapters. It was great to catch up with her! I also ran into Dave Westol who was the speaker Panhel brought to BSU last semester to have a discussion about hazing. After lunch we attended 3 more institute sessions.

Dinner time! At 5:30 we left for our off campus dinner. MB was determined to eat at the Black Bear Saloon because she had made reservations there specifically because it had "bear" in the title. We had to take a bus to get there and we were waiting for it for a good 15 minutes. We found out that the bus stops running at 7pm, but I seemed to be the only one concerned with the fact that we would have to walk back to the hotel after dinner when it was far enough away that we needed to take a bus🤔 But I was really happy with the food because I had fries and blue cheese to dip them in😛. Everyone said my love of blue cheese was repulsive. Like Kyle Bueno and his ketchup/mayonnaise obsession repulsive. How rude. But I guess it kind of bit me in the butt because the blue cheese had crumble in it and one of the pieces fell off a fry and onto the new sweatshirt I bought today🙃.
There was a big bear statue outside the restaurant and, naturally, MB wanted us to take a group photo with it. We were posing and MB was waiting for a man to walk by so we wouldn't be in his way, but the man had a dog so Bree stopped him and made the dog be in the photo. Both the man and the dog were homeless. At this time we were beginning to make our trek back to the hotel, because turns, out, the bus was still running, but we missed it because it drove right by us while we were trying to get the dog to pose for our picture. The journey was full of jay-walking, and several odd Hartford natives such as a man going to a sushi bar in lederhosen.

By the time we finally got back to the hotel it was time for the NGLA dance party! There were glow sticks, wobbling, cha-cha sliding, cupid shuffling, you name it. My favorite part of the trip so far was seeing members of NPHC organizations step and stroll. It was honestly the coolest thing I've ever seen! Their calls were also pretty cool!

Finally, we ended our night with the annual BSU pajama jammie jam! We played heads up, ate snacks, had a best pajamas contest, and a heated debate of Wegman's v. Costco.