The first few days of the Program have gone pretty well considering the controlled chaos that is necessary at the beginning of our endeavor. The students have now had two days of their academic (morning classes) and are starting to get reading and writing assignments in them.
Yesterday they had a selection meeting for their afternoon classes – all of the afternoon faculty talked about the different classes that are being offered this summer and invited the students to ask questions and select their classes. After that meeting the rest of the afternoon was given over to auditions for the chorus, musical, and drama.
The first few days are chock full of meetings. In addition to the one mentioned above, there’s an orientation meeting the first night (Sunday) in which the rules of student life are gone over, pressing questions are answered, and the housing staff is introduced. Then, Monday night, there is a meeting about the sign-out procedures as well as a meeting about the GPGC Government where the students are introduced to the concept of the functioning, responsible government here at the GPGC as well as the consequences that may happen if the government ceases to be responsible and fails to function properly.
We’re pretty much done with the large meetings now – the students are ready to begin settling in to their summer routines. Today they went to their afternoon classes for the first time and will be able to change classes for the next few days if they’d like something different.
We also have experienced our first drenching – we thought we had made it without getting the students wet while they changed classes in the afternoon but right after dinner the skies opened and those students not prepared with rain gear got pretty wet. Please send in raincoats, umbrellas, etc. – unless it’s storming we have the students walk from class to class and they really need proper gear.