Food, Worship, Orientation, Repeat

Today was our official YAAD orientation, beginning at 9 am with breakfast and ending at 10 pm with a closing worship service. Annie and I woke up around 8 this morning to the words "Housekeeping!" ringing at our door, followed by excessive knocking. We needed to get up anyway, so the charming voice at the door was a gentle reminder to us that our day was beginning, as was our official involvement in GA 2010. We walked over to the Hyatt for a delicious breakfast and conversation with other YAADs.

After breakfast, we gathered in the Regency Room for morning worship and the start of orientation. This included ice-breakers and plenty of introductions. We split up into different groups, met people, compared colleges and hometowns, told each other our "life stories," and found odd connections (I met two Hamilton students, one of whom had taken classes with my grandfather and the other whose best friend is dating someone from Tom's a capella group). After plenty of meeting and greeting, we sat down for a message on rivers and growth. We had a time of quiet reflection and thought about God's presence in our decision-making throughout life. At 12:00, we broke for a nice lunch provided to us free of charge.

I was a bit disappointed when I saw that a tray of "NY Black and White Cookies" would serve as dessert. They were nothing like real "NY Black and White Cookies," or halfmoons as we know them. It made for a good conversation topic at lunch, as I explained to my fellow YAADs that what they were experiencing was in fact a fraud. Lunching with all new people provoked some interesting discussion: I was seated at the same table as Jamie Garrett's cousin (Jamie is one of my best friends from college!) and two girls from Pittsburgh. One of the girls told us how Mr. Rogers went to her church and that his wife had accidentally short-changed her at a church bake sale.

After lunch, we returned to the Regency Room to take care of some necessary business. All eyes turned toward the projector screen in the room for powerpoint after powerpoint explaining the fascinations of:

• Points of motion
  
• Points of order
  
• Substitute motions
  
• Incidental motions
  
• Amendments
  
• Committing or referring
  
• Calling the question
  
• Etc., etc.
  

Luckily I understood most of what the presenters were talking about because of my participation in Model UN in high school (I knew that would come in handy someday!). After we had received a sufficiently overwhelming amount of information on rules and procedures, we set to electing two co-moderators (one male and one female) to represent the YAADs as well as organize and lead YAAD gatherings throughout the week. My friendship-bracelet-making friend from my flight yesterday was elected, as well as a seminary student named Michael. We finally finished around 6 and attended a dinner hosted by the Presbyterian seminaries from around the country.

Representatives from the seminaries had booths set up with information and swag (apparently "swag" means "free stuff" out here), all happily promoting their individual institutions. We played seminary trivia and by the end of the game I knew all the names of our nation's top seminaries: Pittsburgh, Austin, McCormick, Louisville, Princeton, and my favorite, Dubuque (which turned out to be the answer to a mysteriously disproportionate amount of questions…by the end of the game we were yelling "Dubuque!" regardless of the question, and were usually correct).

After dinner, I ran to Target with Juli to stock up on bottled water for the week since the vending machines ripped us off…a 300mL bottle of water cost $1.25 (normal water bottles are about 550-600mL). With a few more minutes to kill, we stopped by the park near our hotel to toss pennies into the water fountain (symbolic much?), then returned the water to our rooms and went back to the Hyatt for more YAAD activities.

In this final YAAD event of the day, we got to meet the candidates for moderator, then ended the day's festivities with a small service. Each of the five candidates had an opportunity to address the YAADs, choosing their words carefully as we all formed thoughts and opinions in our minds of how we would vote in the elections tomorrow. I know my pick…we'll see how s/he does!

After the candidates spoke to us, we had more worship, listened to a short message, took communion, and ended with a fast-paced hymn set to the tune of Cym Rhondda. I wonder if anyone else at GA caught that Welsh reference...

Oh, and just for the record, we were informed that GA will pay for our wireless, so I ordered 24-hour access and am just a teensy bit less frustrated with my internet than I was last night.