As much as
I would love to jump right into writing about my thrilling first day at the
conference, the real excitement started the two days leading up to the
conference as we were preparing to fly across the country… in a blizzard. As
many could already guess, it did not turn out well. Monday morning I went to
class at 9 am and when I walked back to my dorm at 4 pm that day, we were well
on our way to a foot of snow. This turned into two feet of wet heavy snow that
covered the entire Upper Peninsula, which obviously included NMU campus and the
airport we were scheduled to fly out of Wednesday morning at 8 am. My roommate
and I stayed awake to the wee early morning hours watching the snow fall and
hoping for a snow day. Lo and behold, we did; we got the snow day. Unfortunately,
we did not anticipate what that meant until 12:11 pm, when I received the call
that our flights out of Sawyer International Airport had been cancelled. This turned
into a multiple hour fiasco of calling, packing, and badly held-back panic
while me and (mostly) my mother and secretary of the Center for Native American
Studies, Tina Moses, rescheduled our flights to Green Bay the next day at 11:50
am. I am and will continue to be incredibly thankful for my mom for fixing where
the weather may have defeated our hopes of getting to the national conference.
The rest
of the traveling went smoothly once we were out of the UP and we arrived in
Orlando in awe of how huge this city is. After we checked in at the Caribe
Royale Resort and hung up all of our “business” clothes, we meandered our way
towards food. Turns out we were just far enough away from any restaurants that
we decided on eating at the Tropicale restaurant at the resort. Kristina and I ate
some risotto with cheese, while Waylind had a burger, and Larry had a puny
chicken “breast” that much more resembled a wing. After meeting and hanging out
with a few people from Michigan State University, we got our clothes and alarms
ready for the next day and went to sleep at a mere 1 am.
Once the
alarms went off at the early hour of 6:30 am, I got ready for my day which
would tell me about the next five years of my life; the first meeting of my
Lighting the Pathways program at 9 am. Waylind and I walked over to the convention
center to register and I walked ever closer to my future. 8:50 am rolled around
and I found the room, Bonaire 5. I said “see ya later” to Waylind and I walked
into the room.
The room
was not very full, maybe 30 people at the most including all the staff,
mentors, and participants of the program. The table I sat at was made up mostly
of graduate level students, except for me and the other mentee for my mentor
named Devin. From there, we sat through three hours of introductions,
information, and stories about what we were involved in and the path to get
there. I won’t bore you with all of the information I was told, but to make it
short, I will have a mentor that I will have monthly communication with via Skype, as well as a research project and surveys that will span the length of
the five year program. Along with this, I will have a yearly stipend as well as
travel to the national conference and the leadership summit paid for while in
the program. Lastly, I will be required to take part in a summer Research
Experience for Undergraduates every year. All this is adding up to my
future career as faculty in the STEM fields, and I am so excited to start. But
first, I must meet my mentor tomorrow morning at 8:45 am. Stay tuned for more
on how this goes! :D
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