CryFest

Alright, this needs to be a quick post because an event kept me up really late and I have a check-out scheduled at 9am. Let's do this.

TC

One moment from yesterday that I forgot to mention was immediately after my desk shift. The residential areas of the building have yellow walls, but every wing will put up decorations before the students move in in August that has a certain theme. This year's theme for my wing was the Olympics so we had banners commemorating different sports. I liked it because it was fitting with our theme but abstract enough where we could make a lot of banners for the whole wing rather than focus on drawing the intricacies of a giant campus map (real example from a previous year). 

Anyway, with it being the end of the year, we can wait until the students move out to take down the decorations or have the students take part in the tear-down. A student asked if they could take the decorations down last night and since it was during my desk shift, I didn't think much of it until I walked on floor and saw the hallway filled with yellow. Let's just say that it was a reminder on how we are actually at the end of the year.

TC

My day started with another reminder of "hey everyone is moving out". Okay it wasn't the first thing in my day, but it certainly jolted me out of the "hang around the apartment and don't do much" mode. A student had called me to say that he was ready to move out earlier than planned. At the end of the day, I had three of my first-year students move out, although one guy is living elsewhere on campus for summer research, so it's not like he went too far just yet. Since there were so few people that moved out today, I got to individually see each student off and linger in their room while they did some last cleaning. I know that there are stretches of tomorrow and Saturday when I will be bouncing back and forth between a handful of rooms at a time.

TC

Since it is move-out season, we don't really plan much into our day so that students have a wide range of times to move out. There were good stretches of today where I just sat in my apartment or walked the hallway to talk with random students. I'm pretty sure I finished the grading for Acadacathalonomania and the point spread is large enough for every team that if I didn't get one video, it wouldn't change the final ranking. Unfortunately one of my guys who moved out today was on the winning team, so I'll probably do an email for the results and have the reward be now for the second-years and the fall for the first-years. There were some decent entries although I want to create more physical items for the teams to craft in future competitions. (One example from a previous event was a Plinko board to scale with a quarter that I kept after the team didn't want it.)

TC

The late night/early morning event was our candlelight ceremony, otherwise known as CryFest. Every year, we gather the second-years (that want to take part since it is an optional event) and take them some place on campus to have one final time to talk to one another as a larger group without having families or boxes with stuff in the mix. We open it up for the students to say whatever they want, so it becomes a time for students to share their story, say their thanks, and even apologize and make amends with others. There were plenty of things to say and hear, and so we were outside at the pavilion for three hours.

All the RCs attend the event and it can be surprising what memories the students bring up about us. One of the few/only times I was called out individually during CryFest my very first year was a student thanking me for a night where I helped her through some calculus homework while we sat outside on one of the benches. Here's my attempt to sum up what the students said about me:

- I was there to help out the students when they moved in and were nervous/confused about basically everything
- I was quirky
- I was organized
- I helped push the students through difficult situations and to make sure that they kept going

With those things said, I have a better idea as to why one Acadacathalonomania team said I would be Nick Fury (one item was to answer which Avengers the RCs were like and why) and the explanation was that I was the glue to hold the team together. Still makes me chuckle.

I gave some thoughts about the second-years although I felt like I rambled a bit. There were several people that broke what they were going to say into a few segments, but I felt like making mine in one go. Plus, since I'm not giving a reflection at tomorrow's Graduation Banquet, this was my last chance to really address the group as a whole. Well, as the group that was there. There are many students that I'm going to miss and while many of them are on my wing, so I get to see them when they move out of their room, there are a few that don't live on my wing or even the floor, so hopefully I can say goodbye properly on Saturday. As it is every year, Sunday morning will feel weird because the building will be empty where all I see down the hallway is empty rooms and yellow walls.

TC

We've certainly been going through a few storms the past week, so I hope we get decent weather for Saturday. I do remember moving in/out during rain, so while a little rain isn't terrible, I hope that we don't have storms come through when students are trying to haul stuff to a car waiting in the parking lot. When the candlelight ceremony group walked back to the building, we saw lightning off in the distance and while it's lightly sprinkling now, we didn't have any rain issues during our three hours outside.

TC

This was another day where I didn't think about holidays until sitting down now. Today is Loomis Day, which is to celebrate a guy who tried to create wireless electronic devices back in the mid 1800s. Definitely ahead of his time and I don't mean to be corny, but I could see some of these students creating some amazing technology or idea that feels ahead of its time. The candlelight ceremony really reminded me of the journey that the students have traveled so far, but also of the talents they possess and the prospect of amazing things to come. As I told the students, they are destined for greatness.

TC

Alright, tomorrow is a long day and I need to be fully ready for it. Let's do this! DFTBA!