Welcome to our first weekly update of the semester! Weekly updates are brought to you by Darcy Hansard where I will be filling you in on all the craziness that happens within the walls of Finch 100. Let's dive right in and start with the first week of class!
Week 1: TRADITIONS
When we arrived for our first day of class on January 16, it felt like a Charlie Brown Christmas morning. Our professor Tim Otteman (aka T.O.) had set up goodies for us at each of our desks.
As you may have already guessed, our theme this year is Charlie Brown, "Good Grief Gus: Macker Goes 'Nuts!" We were given our 2020 CMU Gus Macker t-shirt, a nametag, a pencil, stickers, a notebook, and a folder of important information. The only thing missing was the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.
We first started off by introducing our awesome TA's that will be guiding us throughout the semester. First up is Kaitlyn Coons (aka Sally), who supervises the Special Events Team. Then, there is Jillian Rockafellow (aka Patty) who supervises the Promotional Team. And lastly, we have Carly Reimer (aka Lucy)and Rebecca Thornton (aka Marcie), who supervises the Court Captains team. This year we have the expertise of a third-year Gus Macker veteran, Rebecca Thornton, who has been a student and TA in years prior.
In week one, our focus was learning the traditions of CMU Gus Macker, like the Macker Tunnel and 1-2-YOU. The Macker Tunnel is when the CMU Macker team stands in two parallel lines facing each other about 4 feet apart. Everyone claps in a synchronized fashion as the featured person runs down the center of the two lines. After that, we huddle together in a group and chant "MACKER!". It is a fun way to get hyped up and celebrate the fact that we are apart of a Gus Macker event. 1-2-YOU is a greeting tool that promotes conversation. In this day and age, it's so easy to casually pass someone and give a brief "How's it going?" as you continue to walk on by. However, 1-2-YOU gives an opportunity to stop and acknowledge the person to have a conversation with them. It's a valuable lesson that transcends the Gus Macker Family and can be used for moving forward in life.
We were also introduced to two wonderful special guests, Dr. Lori Irwin and Brittany Milan. Lori and Brittany have been apart of the CMU Gus Macker Family since the very beginning. They gave us their advice and insight on everything there is to look forward to this semester.
To finish class, we took individual team member photos in our new 2020 Gus Macker t-shirts. After, we played an ice breaker game called "Snowball". On a sheet of paper, everyone anonymously wrote a thing everyone knows about you, something nobody knows about you and something no one knows about you, but you are now comfortable sharing. We then crumple up the piece of paper and throw it around like a snowball fight. We each grab a random snowball and circle up. One by one we read them off and guessed who the snowball belonged too. It was a great way to loosen up and get to know each other. We left the class laughing and ready to start the semester off strong.