Hey everyone!

So I am currently running on about seven hours of sleep, this weekend was my Senior class retreat! Where do I start?? Friday after school some friends and I ran to the mall to grab a b-day present for my friend who was turning 18! So much for packing lightly, I had about four bags, most of which were filled with snacks. Everyone piled onto the bus, and we started the hour drive to the convent where our retreat was to be held (reminder: I go to Catholic school, so convents are involved, lol.)

On the bus, we proceeded to belt out songs by *NSync, Backstreet Boys, and old school Britney Spears. We finally got there, and I had NO idea what to expect. We all lugged our suitcases up to our rooms, and thankfully mine was in between two of my best friends. All the rest of my friends were relatively close, phew.

As soon as we got there, my friend Mary broke out the iHome and hallway dance parties started up! We eventually all went downstairs to the main common room where we had a prayer service (again, reminder, Catholic school!). It was really nice. I was so tired, but the teachers and leaders had activities planned for us until midnight! Umm, P.S. -- I go to bed at 10, and that’s with a nap in the afternoon! Haha! So, that was the only bad thing about retreat -- lack of sleep.

A really cool part of the retreat was that our leaders were alums from our school, so it was really fun to talk with them, since many were pretty young. Anyway, the teachers were really against people sleeping in other people’s rooms, but that wasn’t going to fly with me. My girls and I love a good slumber party, haha. Around 1 a.m. when the teachers had finally fallen asleep, Mary came into my room to sleep. We took the most hilarious pictures of us on our phone and sent them to all of our friends. Tragically, my friend Katie got locked out of her room, so the teachers actually took the door down!

We woke up around nine and went down to breakfast the next morning. The whole day was filled with different activities: leaders gave talks which brought tears to our eyes, and we all shared stories in small groups. The theme of the retreat was that we are “the salt of the Earth, and the light of the world,” so everything we did had that theme.

Saturday night, after we were all completely emotionally drained, we all went into the common room and sat down. The lights were turned off, and we all sat around this cord with outlets in it. Light bulbs were passed around to everyone, and one by one we had to share who we wanted to be the “light” to in our future. Then we put in our light. After everyone had talked, they lit up the lights, which looked so pretty and even made me cry. Then they played a song from Wicked called “For Good,” which has now officially become our senior song!

Sunday we went home, and the ride back was pretty quiet because we were all exhausted. I never expected the retreat to be so great. Our grade really bonded outside of our usual groups of friends, and we just had tons of fun. The best part of retreat besides the bonding was definitely when the whole grade taught the teachers and leaders the Soulja Boy dance. Haha! Seeing nuns “superman” was the best moment of my life! Anyway, about those college applications…umm…Haha. I will eventually get to those. ?

Talk to you girls next week! *devin*