Today was my last official day of orientation and looking back at it now it was one of the most enriching experiences I could have ever had! The other interns and I met up at the metro as we usually do and made our way to the CHCI building again, and there we had our last cohort breakfast. During this time we also rehearsed our presentations on the Climbing the Hill book that we had been given when we started in-person orientation. We worked on trying to perfect our timing as well as what we were going to say. After eating we went to the NEA building for the final time, and there we had several fun activities that highlighted the ways that we see ourselves relative to our heritage. We also learned about writing more efficiently for our offices and placements and we did a reflection on what we learned throughout our orientation. Then we went on to crush our presentations and had our lunch together! This then led to us writing a letter to ourselves that we would receive at the end of the internship. To say that this was therapeutic was an understatement! Writing this letter really helped me calm my own nerves and worries on how I would do in D.C., and made me realize that I am going to be great here! We played Jeopardy with the intern handbook after writing our letters, and although there wasn't a prize the ENTIRE room was super competitive! It was such a fun final day and I really appreciated everything that I was able to do and learn during this time.
After the end of orientation, the entire cohort went out to a place called Beat the Bomb, where we played a series of mini-games that all involved teamwork in order to get to the final level where we needed to destroy all the boxes in a video game and not get splattered with paint! The mini-games were all challenging in their own ways and made us rely on each other to succeed, and the final game was even harder! We were able to beat the bomb and destroy all the boxes, but ended up getting sprayed anyway! Later, Patrick invited the cohort out to ice cream in order to say goodbye to us all. I won't deny that Captain Cookie was probably one of the best ice cream places I've ever been to, and what made it even better was I got to experience it with Patrick right alongside us! After our final goodbyes, we sadly parted ways and made our way back to our dorms.
