Cadre Camp Reflection 1

I walked into the Cadre Camp room and immediately had 30 eyes staring at me while I took the first open seat I could find next to the first Cadre I met named Melissa. We were introduced to Bill as well as two student service representatives. Next we formed 4 groups of 4 based on a colored dot that was on the back of our name tag and were given an assignment to make an introductory video based off of the movie trailer The Goonies. After the videos we were given a carrot, a garlic clove, an onion, and some basil with very vague instructions on different ways to cut each item. Luckily Brian knew what most of the instructed words meant. Our last task was to draw a portrait of ourselves that involved our hobbies, or anything that we think describes our personality.

My first response to all of the eyes staring at me in the Cadre room was realizing how many different ages of Cadre there were and that the two boys at my table seemed very intelligent. This made me feel very nervous and a little inadequate for this program. When we got into out groups, I felt much more relaxed because my other three group members were very friendly and comfortable with themselves. This feeling continued and even began to grow during the video introductions as well as the cooking segment of camp because of how we all seemed to click and have a similar sense of humor. During the portrait drawing I was a tiny bit nervous to fully draw and explain some of the most influential and special parts of myself with people outside of my group, but I courageously decided to go all out and really show who I was.

The feelings of being inadequate and nervous came from not knowing if I had anything in common with the technology pros, and elementary teachers that I assumed made up the entire class. I assumed that I would be the youngest person in the Cadre, which also made me nervous that I would not be taken seriously. When I looked around the room and saw all of the different talents, ages, and personalities that surround me I felt a lot more at ease and became more confident that I could be apart of this program. I started to love my group because they made me laugh and it was so easy to talk to them, which is why I felt more comfortable drawing my portrait around them. When everyone was presenting their portraits I repeatedly when back and forth on how much I was going to reveal about myself because I was scared of how some of the Cadres, or the Professors were going to react. i feel good though about how much I revealed and how I still left some mystery for the Cadres who really wanted to get to know me could pursue.