The weather was absolutely beautiful on Saturday morning, April 21, and the warmth helped me get out of my bed despite my weekend habit of sleeping in later than seven o'clock AM. I was thankful for the warm weather as it helped me get ready for the tutorial and head over to Hercules Middle School.
I arrived with three students from my own school, El Cerrito High, so I felt quite comfortable and assured walking into the computer room. While we waited for the other students to arrive, Don asked us to try and sit next to someone that we had not yet met. My friend Nick had reserved a spot for himself in the back but he decided to sit next to me until more people had arrived. By the time that the majority of the day's participants had shown up, his spot was taken and we both thought that it would be okay to stay seated next to one another and then mingle with students from other schools during the break.
At first, I stayed close to a couple of my fellow El Cerrito students when the break started. However, I really wanted to meet the rest of the students as well as my chaperone who I had only spoken to over email. As I was getting up to introduce myself, my chaperone, Ian Lawrence, made introductions himself. After speaking briefly with him I felt assured that he would be an excellent person to watch over us, which made me feel less nervous about traveling all the way to Philadelphia this summer. Once we had said goodbye, I made my way over to a group of girls who were involved in the other summer programs and we had a chance to share our excitement and become familiar with one another before the break ended.
The information presented to us by Don was very straightforward and well-explained. I felt pretty comfortable with the tasks we were asked to do from now until the summer is over. I was a little nervous about having to blog everyday, but I figured that I just need to think of it as improving, what I would say is, my bad habit of sporadic journal writing. Overall I understand what is going to be expected of me and I am prepared, and anxious, to get started on this journey!
