Value and Fun in what Seems Mundane

Owen Lai

On February 23rd to the 24th, the seniors had their annual Transition Retreat, going to Flamingo Hotel instead of their usual classes. 

Senior Transition Retreat is essentially Senior Sneak’s little brother, but it has a very different purpose. Sneak is all about bonding with your classmates and having fun. On the other hand, Senior Transition Retreat is the annual retreat meant to prepare seniors for life after Dalat, where alumni and teachers talk about important topics such as “leaving well,” “values,” “culture,” and many more. 

The schedule for the retreat reflects this purpose as it consists of listening to teachers and alumni talk for 715 minutes or approximately twelve hours in one and a half days. That is a lot of time spent listening to people talk, and it was. It was hard to stay awake at times and stay completely engaged, and it was definitely not fun listening to people talk for that long.

So far, I have made it sound like the retreat was boring and should be skipped, and this was my initial impression going into the retreat. However, this could not be further from the truth. It is important to remember that you are going on this retreat with the rest of your class and friends. Whether or not the retreat will be a fun experience or not is up to how you spend your time at the retreat. You can spend your time complaining about having to listen to talk to people for so long, or you can see this as time spent with your classmates and friends. An example would be when two tables decided to host a paper-folding war where they created two massive paper armies of tanks, aircraft, and ships during the talks. They chose to see this as time spent with classmates and friends where they could have fun. 

The retreat was not spent listening to talks the entire time either. During the downtime, we were allowed to leave the hotel and go out and have fun, or we could stay in the hotel and go swimming, play on the beach, kayaking, and do many more activities. Even during the talks, games and small competitions were held meant to keep us awake which also linked back to what we were talking about.

The purpose of the retreat was to prepare seniors for life after Dalat, and if you stay awake and pay attention, there are many important ideas you can take away from the alumni and teachers. Yoseph Yang, a senior, had one such takeaway: “I learned a lot about college part-time jobs and am now considering whether or not I should work during college." Portions of the retreat are dedicated to asking where you can learn a lot if you engage in the topic or if you have any burning questions that need to be answered about the array of topics discussed during the retreat. 

This retreat is about preparing seniors for the upcoming transition in their lives, and whether or not you have fun is up to you.