CSF Spring Retreat in Gatlinburg

I am back from the CSF Gatlinburg, Tennessee Spring Retreat. I met all kinds of new people and over all had a great time. I rode down in a car with some freshmen that I didn't know, but I got to know them a lot better and they didn't act like freshmen at all – which is a good thing. :) When we got to the hotel, "Park Vista Hotel," we were all shocked when we stepped into the huge 15-story cylindrical building with the center completely open so you could see all the floors all the way to the top. If you have ever been to that black pyramid with the light on top in Las Vegas, it was similar to that, only cylindrical and a bit smaller, but still huge!

We started our first session that night with a guest speaker who was going to do the whole retreat. I can't remember his name, but he was pretty good. During they session we would break up into smaller groups for a few minutes to answer some questions and things. In total, there were about 150 college students in the room for each session. After the first session was over, it was about midnight and most people stayed up and played games and hung-out, but I was so pooped that I went straight to bed. The next morning we had another session. Again, we broke off into smaller groups and we were supposed to discuss more topics. After a few minutes of small group, the speaker asked for one member of each group to stand up and share. He also said to "say your name when you stand up so we know who you are." We were the second to last group to stand up and speak, and I was elected to be the one to stand up and speak.

When I stood up to speak I said, "Hey, I'm Samuel Powers just like on 'Saved by the Bell.'" Then I heard a rumble throughout the room of people saying, "Screech! Oh, that's Screech!" Then of course everyone laughed as I explained how the nerdy fellow "Screech" is actually quite an accurate description of my own nerdiness.

Later on that night we had our last session. When I sat down, several people came up to me saying, "Hey Screech!" trying to use my new nick-name. When the session started the speaker had everyone stand up who's last name started with a letter between "L" and "T." I stood up with about 30 other people. Then he said, "If the second letter of your last name is the vowel 'E,' 'U' or 'O' remain standing." There were about 10 people still standing (including me of course.) Then he said, "If your last name contains the letter 'W,' remain standing." Everyone sat down except for me and Doug Meriwether. Then he had both of us come to the front. As I am walking from the back of the room to the front, I am hearing a familiar rumbling throughout the crowd, "Screech, Screech!"

When we got to the front, the speaker asked us what out favorite animal was. Doug said a beaver, and I didn't know what to say, but I said a fox. Then the speaker instructed us that we were students from two different schools and the mascot of my school was a fox and the mascot of Doug's school was a beaver. Next he told us that we had to make up a school cheer. He gave us some time to think about it, so I started focusing on the first thing that I thought would make a good cheer for a school – an acronym for "fox." Doug went first and as he was doing his, I was writing on my hand the acronym that I quickly pulled out of my butt so that I wouldn't forget it.

Doug finished his short cheer and everyone clapped. I was so focused on writing my acronym down that I didn't pay attention to the words Doug was saying in his cheer. All I noticed was that he didn't get the crowed involved in his cheer, so I knew to make mine better, I had to get the crowed involved. Then I realized all eyes were on me, it was my turn. I walked up closer to the crowd and clasped my hands around my mouth to make a hand-megaphone and began to scream the acronym I had made up. As the words were leaving my mouth, I started thinking, "What am I saying!?" "FREELY! OPPRESSED! XENA!!!" When I saw the confused look on everyone's faces, I knew that none of them understood that it was an acronym. So I quickly looked at my hand to read off "plan B" cheer. "We are the foxy school!" Then I screamed "F!" and pointed at the crowed who responded with a loud, "F!" "O!" The crowed responded, "O!" "X!" "X!" "We are the foxy school!" After the cheer was over, I realized that although I got the crowd involved, I would have done better to make up a cheer that went, "M! Y! Z! T! What's that spell? NOT FOX!" Needless to say, Doug won. When I went back to my seat, people around me were like, "Oh, so that was an acronym!" I shook my head in shame. :( "Freely oppressed Xena!?" I thought to myself, "What was I thinking!?"

Later on I had a bunch of people who I had never met before come up to me and say, "Hey, Sam." or "Hey, I know you, you're Sam." Then when I came home, there were a bunch of "Friend Requests" from FaceBook from people I didn't know. It's kind of weird when people know your name when you have never met them before.

After the whole weekend commenced, we packed up and headed back to Lexington. The traffic in Gatlinburg was horrible. The night before, it had snowed about 8 inches and the roads where cleaned off, but traffic was extra slow. We were at a stand-still for what seemed like forever. As we were waiting in traffic, we saw a group of kids throw a snow ball at another group of kids across the street. Apparently, the two group of kids didn't know each other, but a snowball war was provoked. As we watched snowballs fly across the street of stopped traffic like machine-gun fire, we had finally found our entertainment for the stalled traffic. Occasionally a kid would get hit good and we'd all say, "Awww! That had to hurt!" As our car crept up closer to the heat of the battle, I rolled down the window and reached up to grab a hand-full of the snow from the top of the roof of the car. When I pulled a chunk of snow loose, half of the side of the snow broke loose and fell into the car and onto my lap. I quickly rolled up my window and dusted the snow off of my lap and formed a nice, round snowball. Micheal, the driver, helped me time the perfect opportunity.

Our car was now at a red light and we were in the dead center of the snowballs hurdling through the air. The light turned green and I rolled down my window half way and stuck my hand out the window with the snowball. There was this little fat kid about five feet away from me who was looking across the street. I said, "Hey!" and pegged the kid right in the chest as soon as he looked at me. As soon as the snowball left my hand, I see this white blur fly from the corner of my eye and hit me in the face and explode onto Micheal's car stereo. The fat kid had backup. It was the quickest response in a snowball fight I had ever seen. I rolled up my window as fast as I could just as scores of snowballs impelled the Ford Focus we were in. Everyone in the car was laughing hysterically even though the kids clearly won the fight.

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