By violently, I mean in the short two and a half weeks that were were in our Pods it seemed like just about everyone formed lasting bonds and the last things any of us wanted to do was meet new people and leave the lives of our Pods behind. I was specifically not thrilled to be leaving the Moneypants Pod called Pod 18. But alas, I had no say in the matter.
Luckily I was spared from the agony of actually being taken from your Pod and forced into the new "team" because I was granted leave to attend the InterFaith Youth Core's 6th Conference on interfaith youth work where I presented two sessions, one with my best friend and the other with my colleagues that I worked with at the Chautauqua Institution. While I was busy presenting my life away, my new team was getting their first taste of the mind games our new Team Leader (TL) would eventuality play. Everyone else had cute, fun and adventurous ways to find out who their TL was. My TL, Nelson, decided we needed to learn pertinence. So his only instructions were to wait an hour and a half. In that time all 293 other corps members formed their new teams, while the rest of my team sat around bored and waiting. In fact, they were so bored, one of my teammates, Christie, went to sleep. Finally, Nelson had them meet him in front of the Base Exchange while he sat, creeper like, in our Gold 15 passenger government van.
The team then had a day of training without me at a Hand of Peace session that was to instruct us on how to deal with conflict. While it was a very important session, from what I've gathered, it seemed like RA Training 2.0 and luckily for me Syracuse University has one of the greatest Residence Life programs in the country, so I'm already a seasoned team conflict manager. The next day we were leaving for Camp Mendocino at 6:30AM. I arrived back into Sacramento at 11:50PM. Got back to base by 12:12AM, and was in bed by 12:30AM. I slept for 5 hours, packed, showered, and figured out how to load my stuff into the cargo van. I then found my way to my new Kitchen and proceeded to eat breakfast and make lunch with my TL without knowing it. In fact it wasn't until I got to my muster spot that I found out who was on my team or who my TL really was.
Awkward.
But such is life.
I can't think of any other word to describe the process of leaving your new AmeriFriends for another group of "friends" you're going to be forced to live, work and play with for the rest of your AmeriLife.
Awkward.
