Take 40 TechX students, two lake houses, a scenic lake, and creative freedom to explore, and what do you get? A brilliantly memorable weekend. TechX took Bridgton Maine this past weekend as members from all committees woke up bright and early for a weekend of team bonding away from the high speed flow of activity at MIT. Waking up at the crack of dawn, I was packed and pumped for my first ever retreat. A weekend to get to know my new teammates with games and skits? I was hyped.
Many people are going to tell you that the journey matters more than the destination, and that was true of our bus ride up… if you count sharing our best sleeping faces and neck breaking postures. I closed my eyes to a sleeping Cambridge with the sun just peeking over the Charles River and opened them again to a tame lake under a brightly lit sky and two gorgeous lake houses holding our committee directors hiding in various nooks and crannies.
In the thought process of our fearless TechX directors, the best way for everyone to acquaint themselves with the houses was to go searching high and low for them inside the house. From underneath a pile of covers sprouted a THINK director and from behind window curtains produced an xFair director, and on it went until all directors were accounted for.
With all members’ bellies filled with breakfast, TechX broke into small groups to battle for coveted points by completing cleverly worded challenges (GO WET POPTARTS! Later renamed soggy poptarts). 20 minutes into this game, I witnessed Jack Serrino’s insane jumping capabilities, pulled off a magic trick, and chanted “GO WET POPTARTS” more times than I ever thought I would. The end of our first group challenge signaled the time for nothing other than…TECHX SWAG! Swiggity swag newly designed TechX shirts were in the bag! I was now properly outfitted for a TechX family photo worthy of a spot atop the fireplace (or the TechX office in our case… or just Google Drive), we all gathered outside in 30 degree weather sporting our t-shirts and took a family photo like no other:
With family vibes floating throughout the house, we dispersed to the lake where paddle boats were taken out to explore neighboring islands and I began a volleyball game in which the ball almost floated to oblivion that was the lake just like our worries as the rustle of fall trees and screams to keep the ball up filled the chilly Maine air. Little did we know what would hit us shortly after lunch: A scavenger hunt selfie competition *dun dun dunnnn*
Grouped with new members, I was ready to take some group challenge selfies and photobomb other group selfies to my utmost. We started strong by becoming professional interpretive dancers for a group video, got married in a hastily improvised wedding procession, toilet paper mummified my lucky teammate, and finally got off the crazy train with a dance battle with another group. I limboed over a metal pole and became my spirit animal with a new group of people, creating memories that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon (the selfies will carry on if ever I do forget.) Suffice to say, this scavenger hunt showed the passion and ambition that all members held, many groups going above and beyond to complete all 2 pages of challenges and trekking miles to do so to boot!
Cue a brief intermission in which we all came back to the house and collapsed for a few hours of much needed rest… or a few games of pool played with cue sticks and even our hands (changing it up a little!). As the night set in outside, I was recharged and ready to help plan a committee skit to poke fun at our directors and win the skit challenge for the THINK committee, because “we did it for the college apps!” From an episode of Shark Tank, Kanye’s hopeful dream to join MakeMIT, and THINK’s skit envisioning just how far public figures would go for college apps, I was left in tears of laughter and completely floored by the hilariously creative skits created from just a topic sentence and 30 minutes of planning. But alas, only one committee can triumph in the skit challenge, and as a proud member of the THINK committee, I would say we killed our skit performance and won a head start in the race to our second lake house, where dinner awaited.
With a jampacked day, I should be hitting a food coma right about now, right? Wrong. After our directors imparted wise advice to baby TechX members, we were free for the night, and that naturally ended up with a bonfire, ramen party, hot tub adventure, and guitar/ukulele singalong all happening at once. The house was a bright light in the darkness of the night that burned into the wee hours of the morning, moving us closer to the end of an amazing retreat.
As Sunday rolled around, I enjoyed the lake’s view one last time and departed a house filled with new memories on my way back to Cambridge and the bustling lives we temporarily paused for a memorable weekend. I leave you here with hopes that you lived some of the most striking experiences of my first retreat and an adorable photo of TechX dabbing!
