No One Puts Juliedelphia in the Corner

I just got back from two days in the Catskills. Johnny Castle did not teach me any dance moves, unfortunately. I did get to bond more with my cohort (the sixty people with whom I will take every class this year) and finally learn the identities of my learning team mates (the five people with whom I will do every group project this year, a subset of my cohort, natch).

My learning team seems to be a good group. We are specifically picked for diversity (two women, three men, two international, three US citizens, three engineering backgrounds, one accountant) so I think I have a lot to learn from them. They try to accelerate the process of figuring out how to work together by forcing us to run around and do a variety of activities as a team, generally competing against the rest of our cohort for points. Here's a list of activities, guess which one my team won outright:

• Design a catapult and see who can hit the most targets with water balloons
• Reassemble a mini-helicopter based on quick looks at a completed model
• Ropes course activities
• Canoe races
• Brain teasers
• Write,choreograph, and perform a song about your team and Wharton
• Pick supplies you would rescue from a burning plane if you were stranded after a crash
• Develop a business plan for a business which could serve Wharton students and present it to the cohort.
  

They described the song activity and told us to go off and start working on them. I had the song written by the time my team got to its meeting place. That gave us extra time to learn the words and work on the choreography-- I'm not saying 'jazz hands' got us the victory, but the guy from India definitely nailed them. And the other hit was (for rhyming purposes) referring to me as the team 'spaz' (the middle lyrics went, "No bankers here/Three engineers/An auditor and a spaz..."). That's definitely sticking with me so far, such a great way to make your reputation.

We also came in second on brainteasers, and would've come in first if we had utilized our listening skills to draw out our quieter teammates more (we shot down a correct answer that would've carried us to the top).

I also schooled my classmates in trivia, but that was not with my learning team but during the twenty five minutes of unregimented 'free time' they gave us.

I'm off to the Jersey shore for the weekend starting tomorrow morning, Happy Labor Day, readers!