This was possibly the most moving experience I had ever been a part of. I must say, that until that moment I did not truely understand what they called MSA. By the end of our last gathering together, I had realized what had happened in the time I had spent there, at MSA. But that is all for another bloglet.

The event began with a couple of awards and a skit put on by the acting for non-actors class. Then it started getting sad. The choir sang, well, everyone sang “A Chance to Soar”, our anthem. Then we got to see our slideshow, which actually had good music to it. Then it was our RAs turn. They each shared a quote that had some relevance to our lives, it was nice. After the quotes it really broke down. Under our seats were baggies of beads, we each got 2, a ketchup colored and a mustard colored. You were supposed to give a bead to the one person that meant the most to you at MSA.

They walked us out to the quad in silence, probably the only time we were silent at all of MSA. There were hugs all around, a couple of people were crying. As we walked out to the quad we picked up a candle in a cup. We made a circle on the quad, keep in mind that its 10:00 at night and dark. You could just barely see the person across from you. Ted proceeded to tell us how great we were, and explain what was going to happen. Ted and another, walked to the center of the circle and lit their candles. The RAs then walked to the center and lit theirs from Ted’s. Then each of our candles was lit by the RAs. I don’t really know how to describe it all.

We were told to wonder about and find our minor classes. After finding them and talking a bit we all gave each other hugs. After I had hugged Gina, I thought I heard someone running through the sprinklers with an umbrella, you know the crackling sound. I looked and didn’t see the sprinklers… I think, sprinklers? Look, no… hair?… no, Sprinklers… no… hair!!! It turns out that Gina had lit my hair on fire with her candle. It was a bit ironic too, because I had been saying earlier that I had never smelled burning hair. Wow.

We then found our major classes, and then our houses. Zup showed us his “Not Not” shirt and we had fun lighting our cups on fire. After that we all wondered around giving people beads and hugs. I lost Kate so I had to go back to Twain and find her to give her a hug. It was alright though, it really made me realize that there are awesome people in the world.

—nathan