A Night of Congratulations

The new Pinole Middle School

My night was a night ran off an energy tank on empty. My night was exhausting not only from the two hour orientation, but also from a week of finals and testing. This meeting was set to take place at the new and improved Pinole Middle School, and to begin at 6:00 PM, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Instead we all had to wait for each and every student to show up with their parent by their side, and then the meeting would begin, after Mr. Ramsey would stress the importance of being on time to each and every student.  After about twenty or so minutes every student was there, except for one student's parent, but the show had to go on so we began.

The night began with Don explaining what would happen for the night, and then he explained what the table of materials was for. The table was full of Don's LOANER items. I put loaner in all capitals because Don couldn't stress it enough how important it was to give back ALL the things he loaned out, and in the same condition he gave them. The items that he would loan out were items that a student doesn't have, but needs and doesn't want to spend money on. This is so that the student can live comfortably on campus with little problems. The items consisted of extension- cords, tripods, laundry bags, bed sheets, and even laptops like the one I am currently typing on (Thanks Don.) 

After Don got done talking the mike was handed over to all of the chaperons, so they could introduce themselves and give a brief overview of why they decided to take part in the ILC. After the chaperons gave their personal statements we were directed to go into the rooms that had our school flag on the door, so our parents could sign the permission slips and discuss any questions they might be holding in or curious about. After everybody was herded to their rooms, the interrogating began. 

When in the other room we discussed our site seeing plans for the trip, the restaurants we would eat at, and the colleges we will see. We plan on first visiting Washington D.C. and going to Georgetown University, from there we are heading to New York to check out either Columbia or Cornell Universities. Then we plan on heading down to Penn State where we will taste an authentic Philly cheese steak from the city of Philadelphia its self. Then we are going to head on down to Nashville to begin the real task ahead of us, but that's not all but I'll stop here because I don't want to give away too many clues on what we are doing.

The outside looking in on the cafeteria. 

After playing twenty- one questions with Mr. Mannix, Don came in and took pictures and kind of told us to wrap it up with a ten minute warning to be back in the cafeteria by 7:30 PM. 7:30 came around and we all made our way back into the cafeteria where we were given the final hurrah or congratulations from Don and Mr. Ramsey, because true enough this meeting was the final meeting with the ILC until we are all sent off from the airport. This orientation was really just a secretive way of saying congratulations for making it into the Ivy League Connection program, which lit my face with joy.