First day of Shad!

Arrived at Howe Hall, my home for the next month. It was lightly drizzling and we entered the 4-storey stone building, following the Shad signs (there are other groups using this residence while we're here - the "Tattoo Group" [whatever that is!] as well as Explore, a French program I was considering applying for this summer). I was given a folder with my name on it and my room key, meal card, map of Dalhousie, info re: wifi access, a schedule of the next week, and a list of all the program directors and assistants with their phone numbers.

I unpacked absolutely everything and immediately felt calm and settled in. I wandered downstairs into the Study Hall in the basement. A group of kids were in a circle talking about different movies and stuff, so I sat with them. In another corner some guys were playing guitar, and in another an intense game of chess was going on. I had a cookie and some 7Up (Diet, sadly, was all there was). I taught this girl how to play Battleship and we played a round on the little travel-sized game that was there (there was a box filled with decks of cards and various board games for us to do).

A bunch of us went outside into the courtyard and tossed a frisbee around, saying each other's names as we did it. Then we moved onto Ultimate Frisbee, which I am awful at. Our team lost :) We then played a game much like hide-and-go-seek, which was fun for a short while but being in a small courtyard there are only so many places you can hide.

Went inside and watched the end of the chess game. We played a massive game of Cheat, using THREE decks of cards because there were about 15 of us or something. Afterward we split into 2 groups and played Spoons (another card game...but we substituted spoons for dominoes). Another group of people were also playing Spoons with dominoes but they made it really cool and made the dominoes on other sides of the room so people had to run to grab them instead of simply reaching across the table. We played Flapjack (seems these summer programs are all about card games...last summer at PSYL we played President 30 times a day!), which was amusing...then it was time for dinner (BBQ).

Next it was orientation & icebreakers for a couple hours within the Study Hall. We got into a circle and this professor at Dalhousie spoke to us as a kind of introduction. Then we did a bunch of fun improv games. In one, we split into groups of 3. Each group split itself into an inner circle and an outer circle. The inner circle kids faced a person in the outer circle, and you had to introduce yourself but the way a certain character would say it (e.g. car salesman, lost tourist) AND you were given a question to answer to that person (e.g. in 10 years I see myself..., the quality I admire most in a person is...). It was fun. All of the activities we played were really open and great.

We also did the usual organize-yourselves-in-alphabetical-order-of-your-middle-names-but-without-talking, and we organized ourselves in order of birthdays without talking too. They split us into groups and we did some get-to-know-each-other games, including this hand game, a mental/mind puzzle, a gladiator pool noodle-ish fighting game, etc (really hard to explain them all, but really fun and cool).

Oh! I forgot. Before all those games we went on a tour of the cafeteria. Apparently there are 200 other people in the building staying with us? So lunch is going to be mega crowded. We got a few tips from the head caf manager about how to navigate the lines, and we now know where all the food is. There's going to be a salad bar, yoghurt, cereal, pasta, pizza, a grill, drinks, home-cooked style veggies & such, etc. The guys are all super excited about the fact that it's pretty much all-you-can-eat and it's free :) So it should be no problem I think.

At around 8:45 we gathered in this other room and went over rules and information...going over how things are going to work, how a day is going to be, curfew, etc.

Now it's midnight and I really should get to bed. My roommate Avi is really nice. She's from Newfoundland (the only province I've never been to!). Avi is asleep to my right (it feels like 12:30 for her since she's a half hour ahead) and we're getting up at 7. I'm so pleased I was able to write this!

Danielle Biss
Shad Valley Dalhousie
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario