Floral T-shirts!

For the first time in years, I had my outfit planned in advance for something. And the only reason it was planned was because Hercules has a tradition of wearing floral t-shirts to match Don every Orientation. So deciding between my one floral t-shirt didn't make it too hard finding an outfit for the day. 

My family and I got there pretty early, so we just examined the framed picture from the School Board meeting and then my mom and I caught up on a little gossip since we don't get much time anymore to just sit and talk about random things. After a while, I got distracted and I ended up sitting with Bianche and Cecilia. 

Our best family pictures are always from Don

Soon enough the Orientation began rolling with Madeline Kronenberg starting it, telling us that our blogs show up when admissions officers Google us. On that note, I just Googled myself and found my Vanderbilt blogs on the second page, while my YouTube account was the second result. (You should subscribe to my channel too). The images on the other hand, were full of pictures from last year's blogs, thumbnails from my YouTube videos, and henna. 

We then broke up into groups with our cohorts where we signed forms and went over the schedule. We get to fly in Southwest, which means I get to bring more clothes! Thank you Don. We then narrowed down the places we should visit at Chicago, because sadly we can't do all of them in the short time we have. (Although that is a nice challenge that I think would be fun to try to overtake.)

Forms and schedules

Ryan came a little bit after, and he gave us advice on what places we should visit. He told us about the activities held by the program. Apparently you could either pick to go with your RAs and have a planned out day during the weekends, or just hang out on your own with others. Sadly, he had to spend a lot of his time working so he couldn't do all those activities. I could see that finding a balance between work and and fun was hard, especially for a class as busy as American Law and Litigation. I know there will be a big workload, but after never having many chances to be outside on my own, I want to to make the most out of everything. 

Then, Don began talking again, mostly directed at the parents to fill them in about what was happening. I admit my mind may have started drifting to some very far places as I had already heard him say all these things before. When the Orientation ended, I grabbed two suitcases that I wanted to claim and took pictures with them. During that time, Bianche left sadly, and we couldn't take our Hercules picture with Don. 

Before I left though, Ryan reminded me of how lucky I was to be able to have this opportunity twice. And I agree. I am truly lucky, and ever so grateful that I was able to be a part of this life-changing program twice. So once again, thank you to Don, all the sponsors, panelists, and everyone who makes this happen. Thank you for making our lives better and giving us opportunities we didn't think were possible. 

Bianche also had a floral t-shirt. Let's pretend these
two pictures are connected.

Floral T-shirts!