First Day!

Well, it's here!  Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures.

BUT the day was great.  We had introductions "check-in"s and started our leadership workshop/seminar called Universe from Within.  I must admit that I usually hate these soft skill workshops, but I found this one to be very engaging and practical!  It's a good sign indeed =)

Our class has 48 people, 14 of whom are girls.  I think the number is pretty good.  We then got divided into 8 teams of 6 people each.  Teams 1-6 have 2 girls in each, while teams 7-8 have 1 each.  I'm on Team 8.  I didn't really think anything about it until Alex mentioned that other teams had 2 girls.  I thought if being the only girl on the team really bothered me and thought not because I've been working with boys and men all my life, most specifically in my manufacturing work at Gillette with male technicians with years of experience who just thought of me almost as their daughter.  My team 8 is awesome, and I felt like one of the guys. We got to talking about how there are a lot more guys than girls in higher up positions, and I just think that it is the case not because girls aren't smart or driven but that there are more of us that put more emphasis on family. 

Anyway, the teams played a game of survival where we ranked 15 items in terms of priority individually and as teams.  Winning was considered 2 different ways: 1) team whose ranking was most similar to the expert ranking and 2) team whose ranking score was the most different from the average team members' individual ranking comparison to the expert ranking. The first way of looking at the winning meant that the team worked well as  members helped each other thought through goals and decisions.  The second  meant the team work was much better than what individuals could do on their own.  Well, guess how our team did?  We won in BOTH categories =)  Although I don't have pictures from today, I'm sure I'll post plenty of pictures of my team this summer.

We watched a movie which we will discuss in class tomorrow and called it a day.  More than half of the class went to Asgard's for 25 cent wings, but I didn't go because I went running with Eve instead.  I was a bit sad that I didn't see my work bestie Eve during the day like I normally would at work, so I was very happy to see her after.