Rafting

The freshmen orientation committee planned for us to go whitewater rafting today as a "team-building" activity. I had never been rafting before and I was definitely more than a little intimidated, but I figured that I’d regret it if I didn’t go.

First of all, all of us had to be out in front of the busses by 5:30 a.m. Waking up that early is definitely not the best way to start your morning. I slept most of the way there and was awakened by the unpleasant sound of one of the event coordinators shrieking, "Time to get off the bus! Find your groups!" We had arrived at our destination late so everyone was in a big rush to get us down to the river.

They said to get a helmet, get a paddle, get a life vest, and get back on the bus. After we all loaded and unloaded ourselves from the buses a time or two, they did a headcount. Our raft guide then screamed to his supervisor one of the most unsettling things I had heard that whole day, "We left with 42!" My question was, weren’t we supposed to come back with that many anyways?

The raft guide went through the basics of what to do in case of an emergency, or rather, what to do when (not if) one of us fell out of the boat. He went through all of the worst case scenarios: broken legs, bruised bodies, drowning freshman. At the end, he must have seen that we looked a little pale because he made a rather unsuccessful attempt to make us feel like we weren’t heading to our deaths. He yelled out over the bus motor "What’s the worst that could happen? You could die, that’s all." At that, he laughed a bit to himself and sat back down in his seat until we got to the river.

The day went by without any problems though. I had an awesome time, met some wonderful people, and even got some fantastic action shots of the screaming faces of other rafters as they were about to hit a class 4 rapid. I’m so glad I went out on a limb and tried the rafting. I think I might even try going again next month!

After the day of rafting, all of us were exhausted. The drive back to the university was long and silent and when we arrived on campus I believe that was the first time I referred to the campus as home.

See you next time!

Jennifer
University Freshman
Life University grad & writer http://www.lifeu-online.com/