The first day of Youth Slam was so great and exhausting!!! Breakfast was bright and early, starting at 6:00. My team was there at about 7:30. We would later discover that it was better to end up there earlier rather than later so we would have time to eat. That’s because slight mishaps do tend to happen.
That first day we had a lovely breakfast of potatoes, bacon, eggs, and other things my poor brain can’t remember.
After that, we all went to a welcoming short session. It featured some great speeches by people that had done some wonderful things as blind scientists, and the Dean of education for the University of Maryland. It was all fantastic, except for the fact that I was cold. But then I’m always cold, in case anyone ever wondered why I always wear a jacket, even in 90-degree weather.
The next order of business was finding and meeting with our Slam News track. Our track is awesome! When we got there, the different parts of what makes the Slam News tick were explained to us: the bloggers like myself, Kayla, Olado, Denzel, Tarik and Tomi; the podcasters like Dawlyn, Derrick, Scott, Jennifer, and Ja’Nesha; the journalists like Jordan and Gabe’ and the video people like Amber, Missy and Amber. Afterword we divided into our separate groups and were given our assignments.
For bloggers, the first assignment was writing down 25 things about ourselves, which are now posted. For the rest of the time with our track, what we created would appear some way or other, no matter which of the news crew did it. Even our tweets on Twitter would appear.
At around noonwe broke for lunch. That was a fun meal involving new faces and resulting in some honorary members invited to become friends with the Georgia students. We’re always looking for new friends. After lunch, it was back to work, finishing up our writing, audio, or video.
At around 6:00 , we broke for dinner, after which we had a dance. It was supposed to be a barbecue, but it rained so it was moved indoors instead. Our news crew wrote and posted a piece about the dance, keeping us alert and working whenever a slam activity merited it.
By the end of the evening we all had fun on the dance floor,
And by the time the dance ended, we were all exhausted and ready for bed. What a tornado of activity we had that first day, and a whole week still awaits us.