NGLA: Day One!

NGLA- Day One!

Today was the day. We packed up everything in a fifteen passenger van and headed to Hartford, CT for the NGLA conference. After finding a large enough spot in the parking garage, getting settled in our rooms and scoping out the nearest Subway, we began our first conference tonight.

Our first conference was "Social Excellence" presented by Phired Up Productions. It was a really cool opportunity to be able to see this presentation again and learn even more from Shira and Matt. The hour and fifteen minute presentation mainly focused on how relationships are the how and why to the existence of our Greek organizations. We need to focus on building and maintaining these valuable relationships if we want to see our organizations continue to grow and succeed.

About half way through the presentation, we had the opportunity to mingle! Yes, mingle! Although I am slowly becoming more extrovertes, at first I was apprehensive about this exercise as I always am. However, I can tell you that after this experience I was very excited to share it in this blog post.

I had the opportunity to meet Lawrence, a Senior at Drexel University in Pennsylvania. I inititally was really interested in how he drove five hours earlier in the day to attend the conference. It was cool to meet someone who is from another state but was just as excited to be here as I was.

I was able to have a conversation with Lawrence for about fifteen minutes before the exercise ended. However, that is not the cool part. The cool part of the conversation is that it is one of the most enjoyable conversations I have had in awhile. We intitally started talking about celebrities and our favorite childhood memories. As the conversation progressed, we got on the topic of  asking ourselves the question "What are you passionate about?".

If you are thinking that this is a deep coversation to have with someone that you just met, I completely agree with you. However, it was the most enjoyable part of our conversation. Lawrence told me that he is passionate about genuinely wanting to be able to help people. He explained about his past history with tutoring and how it was the main reason he became interested in Greek life. He just wanted to be able to help people and Greek Life provided a way for him to do it.
I found his answer really interesting because it is such a simple idea but not everyone is willing to do it.

At the end of the conversation, we exchanged a handshake, a hug, and went seperate ways. I couldnt help but think that I never would have been able to have this great conversation with him if Matt and Shira never "told" me to go mingle. I realized that I never really have to be told to talk to people. I could be having amazing conversations with people on and off campus everyday if I wanted to be. Overall, I took away from this session the idea that every moment is an opportunity. It could be an opportunity to stay in your comfort zone, or it could be a opportunity to make a new relationship like I did with Lawrence.

Throughout the rest of my experience at NGLA, I am going to challenge myself to take advantage of these moments of opportunity. The only way we are ever going to learn and grow in our community is if we take advantage of every moment and that is what I learned tonight.

Have a great night!
Jesslyn :)