Prep Work: Done

Today is June 1st, which also means that exactly one month later I, along with the rest of the UPenn cohort, will be hopping on the plane to Houston, Texas.

School has been out for me since the 20th of last month, but I decided to not waste a perfectly unplanned month before the UPenn summer study so I signed up for a philosophy class at my neighboring community college. What Contra Costa College does best is that they offer a summer intersession course and the philosophy class happens to be one of them; this suits my needs perfectly. The intense three week philosophy course will be a warm-up to the upcoming Social Justice Academy.

After getting out of my philosophy class at 1PM, I positioned myself an enclosed space in the San Pablo library, immersed into a new series I had found recently; the Lorien Legacies. I realized that by the time my phone rang at 5PM, I had already finished three-fourths of the first book. I decided to check out the sequel so I'll have an extra in case I finish the first book before tomorrow. My mom called promptly at 5:15PM and I headed out to the parking lot to search for my mom's whereabouts. It took me a few minutes but eventually I found the '97 Avalon camouflaged in the rows of cars.

At 6PM, the ILC orientation officially started with Don giving a speech with his aloha trademark shirt with khaki shorts. Most of the ILCers are already familiar with the information but a refresher does not hurt. Our parents, on the other hand, is probably updating not only their cell phones but also their notepads while Don is giving us the brief itineraries for participating schools. After about a good half hour, we then got split into classrooms with our cohort members. Mr. Hillyer was amazing as he started right away by assuring our parents that we'd be in safe hands. Immediately my mom's shoulders soften. Everyone asked questions related to our trip and I think after the group talk we all felt more prepared for what's to come. Chiamaka stepped out as she was part of the Vanderbilt cohort last year so she went across the hallway and shared her experience with the current Vanderbilt cohort.

We gathered once again back to the main multipurpose room and that's when we got to see Don's Items. Don understands that not everybody has traveled before so he had his whole display of items to take on loan. I window-shopped for a bit and realized that I should probably borrow some of Don's Twin XL bedsheets!

Our cohort has agreed to meet tomorrow for our pre-trip dinnereon at Zachary's Deep Dish Pizza. I can't wait until we discuss more specifics and boy, am I excited!

From left to right: Rudy, Chiamaka, Mr. Hillyer, Elexis, Justeen, Myself, and Joanne