SOAR

My church puts on a retreat called SOAR for the incoming freshman. It's sort of like Welcome Week but not at all--if that helps the ACUers who read this blog. They spend Wednesday through Friday out at Messiah Ranch which is about 20 miles from town. On Thursday night there is a special dinner and devo time where the old aggs (and aggies by association) come out to mingle with the new freshmen. We had to meet at the church at 4:45 to get on the church bus (I can't remember the last time I rode on a bus) to take us to the ranch. So I asked my boss if I could get off at 4:15 to be at the church on time and, the gracious person that she is, she let me go.

I had no time to change so I rode on the no air conditioned bus in my casual work clothes. There were quite a few of us that headed on out there. We had a great spaghetti dinner followed by WARM chocolate brownies. While eating this one guy jumped up and made this hand motion and shouted EY, EY, EY and immediately after got on the floor and did pushups. I had no idea what had happened--everyone else was use to it. Sarah and Kim explained to me that each class has a yell and if you do an upperclass yell without permission you are out of rank--I think that's what they called it.

A group of 4 guys most of whom were apart of a group called Under His Wings sang a few songs. Then came the Aggie tradition--Yell Practice. 5 guys in overalls were walking back in forth in this pattern. Then everyone was following their lead doing motions, bending down, singing songs, "passing it back"--I just followed Travis's lead. I had no idea what I was doing. Then came the foot/swaying thing. I had done this once when I went to the Hall. You stick your left foot in front of the person on your left, then you put your arms on the people next to you and sway. Travis said he is going to have to put me through training before I go to an Aggie game.

When it was time for us to go back I really thought it was 10:00 or later but it was only 8:30! You could tell in the bus who had full time jobs and who was still in school--the job people were very quiet/sleeping and the collegers were singing songs as loud as possible. I got home around 9:45 and went straight to bed. It was a very fun experience.

Tonight we are having a back to school back with...blow-up games! I'm so excited!