Bio Drey Land!!

I just got back from bio drey land yesterday, and it was one of the best experiences ever. We left on Wednesday and got there and it was so interesting to view the drey land process from a different point of view and not as a participant but as a counselor and mentor. I'll highlight some of the highs and lows for y'all. Upon arrival, we were split into 4 groups with three counselors in each group. I lucked out with my counselors because I was in a group with Nandini and Kate Stengel, two people I adore, and we got super close because we spent the majority of each day with just us three and our freshman. However, our group wasn't as good... We had multiple problem children who were either rude, bossy, or just didn't do any work. From the other counselors, it sounded like we were the only group with kids like this, but we dealt with it and got through! The first night we had our cookout and oh. my. god. We had to go to the south gravel bar and start a fire to cook the steamboats in the POURING rain. We had planned activities for our group but no one was interested in playing or listening to us and it was just a mess. I'll add that at one point in the night Ms. Gosnell broke out into a rendition of the Soviet national anthem in Russian, just to show you how interesting the night was. We got to do some activities together but it wasn't until the rain lessened when we got really close. We bonded over our horrible experience in the rain and became a much more unified group after that night. The next few days had better weather, and the food was amazing! Our group probably thought me Nandini and kate we super weird because we were just laughing and joking the whole time, and we made up this dance called "hit the craw" (as in crawfish) that we would do randomly and we taught it to the rest of the counselors and even some teachers, it was great. I got a lot closer to the other counselors and we bonded over all the tea we had to share about the freshman. The last night the seniors went out to the gravel bar by ourselves while the freshman worked on their packets, and we just sat there for hours talking about a range of topics and really opening up with each other and now we all have a special bond. The greatest thing I noticed from bio drey land was how much more interesting and fascinating and exciting the tests we do and the information we learn is when I didn't have a giant packet to complete. This was one of my favorite JBS experiences, and I'm sad I have to leave all these freshmen that I've grown to love.

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