Hey, aren't you the Matilda girl?

Hey guys,

I have been sitting in the lobby of this amazing Marriott, reflecting on today, but mainly people watching and I have been telling myself for the last 30 minutes that it is time to blog again. I have seen, done, and heard so many things that I honestly do not know what to talk about. I really just want to say that today was so eye opening and amazing and honestly just call it a day because there is so much to say, but I know people really want to know what I did, saw, and heard! I guess I will just start off at the beginning.

Six thirty came very early this morning. We were so hyped up on energy last night that Diana, Alexis, and I finally had to force ourselves to go to bed at around 1:30 am. Yikes, I know. I was definitely feeling it this morning. I am almost positive that the first alarm went off at 6:30 and I think three more went off before we all finally got out of bed. We got up that early to beat the rush and just some coffee and something to eat at Starbucks. I think my mom and younger sister will be really glad to hear that yes I indeed came downstairs in a pair of fuzzy socks with a scrunchy tying my hair back. If that was not embarrassing enough for some people a song from the movie Matilda came on and I kind of started dance, not really realizing that I was dancing. When I turned to Alexis and ask if the song was from Matilda, the guy in front of us turned around and was like yes it actually is. (A little side note, I ended up seeing this guy again in passing later on in the day and he was like “Hey aren’t you the Matilda girl from this morning?” LOL Yes, yes I am.)

Okay back to amazing day. NGLA opened up with an amazing keynote from Josh Orendi. Yes it was early in the morning for me but he was so uplifting and I honestly did not care that I was dressed up at 9 am and knew I wouldn’t see my bed for a long time. His keynote was really eye opening and made me realize that our greek community is doing so many more things right than I thought we were. The one thing that stuck with my from the keynote is that Josh had us put our thumbs up with we agreed that hazing is acceptable or thumbs down if we believe it is not acceptable. Obviously all of the thumbs that belonged to BSU greeks were down but then we were told to look around and I was shocked to see the amount of thumbs that were up.

The day proceeded with everyone breaking up into small groups for a workshop, then a really good lunch, and then it was the beginning of the educational sessions. Yesterday we all sat down as a group and we decided were everyone was going to go. First, I went to a double session that was called Social Excellence. I was not sure what to expect because I went in not knowing anyone and as confident and outgoing as I can be sometimes unknown experience make me a little nervous. The workshop was very interactive and they got us up and talking to a lot of different people. The overall message of the workshop was to realize how we are interacting with others now and how we are really supposed to be interacting to gain the most out of the conversation. Overall today was really eye opening and I realized that I am not the social butterfly I really thought I was. I am going to take away from this day that I need to just go into every situation confident and everything will turn out amazing.

I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Until next time!

Much NGLA love,

Erika