Flooded With Laughter

The last day of school, finally! The last day of Summer College to be more precise, it’s as if I blinked and the whole experience flashed before my eyes. It feels so crazy that I came into this not expecting to make any friends which would last beyond these three weeks. I met people from all over the country and even other countries that I know will be lifelong best friends.

The laughs we shared, late night talks, sharing the stress and countless adventures; it’s what makes this whole thing worth it. It’s what makes this whole thing a new chapter. So far I think this has been one of the best chapters in my life, I have so many stories to take back with me to the Bay Area, so much to share with my friends form what I have learned about the secrets of being a leader. This independence was on a different level which I have never experienced before, this really has shown me that I can move away for college if I will need to, that I will be okay.  

Thank you Ithaca.

In class, it was very short since it was basically a wrap up. We just reflected on the books we have read and approaches to being a great leader, how we will be when we got back to our communities and organization, and what we thought of our final guest speaker. In lecture our Professor, Mark, went over the key points which he hopes we have taken away from the course which are how you go from a follower to a leader and everything in between.

There were some coffee and donuts just as a treat to ourselves for how far we have come as leaders, and then we acknowledged the students who were not going to be here for the graduation ceremony tomorrow since they had earlier flights. We went outside to take a final group picture as a class, as leaders, and as a family. We would see each other tomorrow but I couldn’t help but feel a little sad about leaving Phillips Hall for the last time.

McKayla and I walked back to Balch to once again submit our final assignments in the lounge; we rested for a bit before getting ourselves together to go out since it’s my Bella’s (my floor mate) birthday today. This is her first birthday without her parents or anyone from Taiwan so we wanted to show her that we are al a family. By we, it’s Miffy (my sink mate), Sloan, Trinity, Vanessa, and McKayla. My best friends. My Summer College family.

Say hello to your world leaders of tomorrow.

Bella!

We went down town to Ithaca for our last night out together for a while, to a place called Waffle Frolic which is a waffle house which carries vegan options since Bella is a vegan. We could not find any nice cake places to deliver so we thought we would surprise her with one of her favorites. They had some of the best waffles I have ever had, you get to customize them with what ever you want and they were so cute! We of course sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and embarrassed her in front of everyone. We also gave Bella her birthday present which was a Peruvian stone necklace.

Afterwards we went to the mall to play laser tag and go to the arcade since we all were super excited and energetic after being done with all of our assignments early. 

My banana split waffles.

Laser tag was so much fun because I came in first place! The arcade was just hilarious and had us all cracking because some of the games worked, but five minutes later they would just eat up our money. We grabbed some food before we were going to leave and ran into something we never anticipated.

When we were in the arcade, and we got an alert for a warning for a flash flood, but the same thing happened yesterday when we were walking back from class and it was not too bad. Today was the complete opposite, it was like the things I see on the news, and the exits for the mall were actually flooded. To the point where they closed it and it made sense to me then why so many people were walking around the mall with their pants rolled up and shoes in their hands.

We walked out from the back of the Ithaca Mall, and there were cars which were having trouble moving in the water! That is when we knew the warning that we all got on our phones was serious. We just didn’t expect this serious. We literally walked through water that was three feet deep and got completely soaked. It was cold and dirty and we were just laughing the whole time because of the turn out of Bella’s birthday and how our last day turned into something we could have never guessed. We got out and noticed that some people had cars which were getting towed, and one family even had pool floaters which they were using to get to the other side.

The struggle was real. 

We called Uber to drop us back off at Balch and even our drivers were shocked at the turn out of the flood. They said that in ten years they have never seen anything like this happen before. What are the odds of us being there to witness it? Once we got back I called Deven to update him about my adventure and just talk about luggage and plans for tomorrow since we will begin traveling. After that my night is just blogging and packing and getting ready for tomorrow. Until then.

It's okay if I didn't see all the Finger Lakes because now there's a new one in the Ithaca Mall parking lot.