Registration Day is a rite of passage for new students and their parents. Most of these kids are leaving home for their first extended boarding experience. What we witness are 123 adolescents and their families attending to room keys, laundry, accounts at the bank, technology info and other necessary details for campus life. Beneath the surface, however, is understandable excitement, anxiety and genuine angst. The new student wants nothing more than to make friends...mothers want to make beds. Fathers feel unexpected emotion; siblings are confused. Through it all, we do our best to make things orderly and fun. The traditional "lapsit" never fails:
The goal is to get several hundred strangers to create a tight circle (impossible) and sit down at the same instant on the legs of the stranger behind you.
For a brief moment in time, it all works.
Then it's time to finish moving into dormrooms and to say goodbye. A chapter is turned. Wilderness Orientation begins tomorrow!
