Being an ILCer 101

Today, as the rain and storms gave way to the sun and blue skies, I made my way to Mr. Taylor's computer lab at Hercules High School for "Don's Damned Tutorial".  When I arrived, I was looking forward to meeting fellow ILCers that I didn't know, but I was surprised when I walked in and saw a trio of people I see everyday: Mr. Litvin, Rachel Redlo, and Tanya Krishnakumar.

As more and more people filed in, I didn't really get to meet anyone new, but it was neat to get to see who else would be going to other Ivy League schools.  During the tutorial Don covered everything from the dos and don'ts of laundry to the responsibilities of being an ILCer.

Cornell University

To conclude the tutorial Don walked us through posting a blog on Blogger. To be honest, going into the tutorial I thought that this part of the tutorial wouldn't be very interesting because I thought it would be like last year's tutorial where we watched Don post a blog on a screen. I was wrong. This year we got to actually practice blogging. I found this to be extremely useful because Blogger has a completely different look, compared to last year. Also, actually practicing blogging made me realize that I was having problems posting pictures exactly where I wanted them to go. Each time I tried to post a picture in the middle of my blog, the picture would always go to the top of my blog. This is an issue that I was glad that I realized now, rather than later.

Cornell University

Finally, what the tutorial did was made me realize that in a couple months I will be on a plane heading off to Philadelphia for college tours and later, Ithaca for Hotel Operations and Tactics for Profitability at Cornell. Before the tutorial, I didn't realize how quickly my trip was coming up. And as Saturday gives way to Sunday, I am really looking forward to spending my summer in Ithaca!

Blogging Has Finally Arrived

Starting off with gloomy weather that included strong winds and a lot of rain, the tutorial session was held in room 106 at Hercules High School. I ran through the, fortunately, light rain, and, avoiding puddles, made it inside the classroom. The time was around 8:45 AM, fifteen minutes before the tutorial began, which gave me plenty of time to let Don scan my ID and medical card. I was looking forward to meeting a bunch of people that I never met before, who were also attending ILC courses. It was intimidating at first, walking into a classroom with no one I know, especially if I made eye contact with the unfamiliar students. It's like being a new student half way through the school year. Eventually, I was calm enough to talk to my fellow cohorts.

When it was finally 9:00 AM and everyone was seated next to a computer, Don began talking about the tutorial agenda he passed out. To be honest, I was quite horrified when I saw how thick the packet was, which I estimated to be at least 15 pages long. Later on, though, I was relieved to find that most of the paper were just examples of past blogs. Talk about a scare! In first hour of Don's speech, he covered things such as: how critical it was to check our emails on a daily basis, the basics about blogging, and the responsibilities that we must follow. It was very informative, but sitting on such a hard chair and not moving really gets uncomfortable for a while. Luckily, a ten minute break helped ease my pain.

After the quick break at 10:15 AM, we were going to get the hands on experience of blogging. We went through the basic editing of Blog Spot, and experimented with its functions such as adding pics. It was enjoyable to hear stories about past ILCers' blogs, with some good and some bad. I mainly remembered the funny ones like how people compared Don to Satan, and how complicated it was for students to use software other than Microsoft Word that was supposedly "just as good."

Overall, this was a fun experience. It was cool to learn how to blog. It is also intimidating, since this is the very first time I am blogging. I'm feeling very paranoid about making a lot of elementary mistakes or doing something wrong. Nonetheless, I was especially fond of meeting new people because I got to see how everyone was like. Also, having Don talk about the food, restaurants, experiences, and stories just made me even more pumped for summer to come. 

The amazing Cornell campus

Oh, by the way, I hope that this blog isn't too short/long. I'm not that used to this new blogging thing.