Words that described my past weekend: new friends, laughs, sleep deprivation, songs, olympics, scavenger hunts, ox, long walks in the woods...etc.

Now where can you find all of these elements tossed together? Well that would be The Campus Ministry Connections Retreat! Starting on Friday 40 freshmen and a handful of upperclassmen leaders gathered in the basement of St. Dominic's Chapel to begin what would be a phenomenal weekend together. Still unsure of one another and just learning names, we ate pizza and did a couple ice breakers before heading on the bus to Pascoaq, RI to a camp site where we would have the time of our lives.

On that friday night, we got settled into our cabins, played Name Aerobics to introduce ourselves and broke up into small groups and had OLYMPICS at MIDNIGHT in the DARK. It really cannot get any better than that. Each group had to come up with their own names and we had everything from my group "The Electric Eclairs," because during our meeting all we talked about was food, to " The Gerunds," it was great. As far as Olympics went we had a water balloon toss, dizzy bat/egg race, human knot competition and the final race... You had to leap frog, eat jello using just your facce, wheelbarrow, eat a donut off a dangling string, crab walk, create a geyser with soda/mentos and make a human pyramid...all while someone on our team was holding a banana, haha! Fantastic right? Well lets just say my team pulled out a FIRST PLACE FINISH in the OVERALL OLYMPIC GAMES and we were so excited, it was a huge deal.

MY TEAM, THE ELECTRIC ECLAIRS

We then moved on to have large group talks about the leaders' personal experiences as freshmen, followed by smaller group talks, reflecting on the values spoken within the speeches. It was a really great oppurtunity to open up to new people, knowing that what ever you decided to share would not leave the room. Then we were given free time to star gaze or just chat with people, then to bed!

Campfire fun!

Saturday morning came fast and began with a great breakfast, more large group/small group talk and then a PICTURE SCAVENGER HUNT! We were given one hour, a camera and a list of things to take pictures of, for example : A prom picture, peace on earth, love at first sight, birth, etc. Now just imagine the creativity that emerged! The pictures were later cast up on the wall for everyone to see and giggle at! Personally I got to be Samara from The Ring because we needed a movie title and I was quite scary looking let me tell you. All weekend that was how people remembered me!

Anyway, my fellow blogger Tom was on the retreat as well and we both wanted to share our take on the experience so if you want to know what happened next, check out his blog soon for PART II OF CONNECTIONS! Overall I have to say I am so glad I went. I was seriously thinking about dropping out with fear that I would get really behind on work, but I met so many great people, opened up to them and know for certain that we will stay friends. Not many schools have retreat oppurtunities like Connections or Transformations, PC is unique in this regard and because of this, our community is extremely tight and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

P.S. the family that owns the property had a pet OX!