Venturing on the EYP’s rollercoaster
First impressions are always the most challenging ones. Although they are never entirely accurate, they still bear a large part of truth. In fact, they are the most immediate and spontaneous response to your object of observation. Observation topic of the day: EYP. Congratulations! You have just survived your first EYP day. Filled with mixed feelings, you are wondering whether or not it was exactly what your were expecting. Back to the start: you arrived this morning, with your fellow school friends – your “delegation”, in EYP jargon. They are your anchors, the people with who you applied to the session and worked your way through to go to Lillehammer. But you have come to understand that EYP is about stepping out of your comfort zone. Separated from your dear companions, you have made friends with your fellow committee members in quite an unusual way. Abandoning the early sensation of uneasiness required going through the whole teambuilding process. A process that involves a huge variety of people playing some games that, for most, you have not played since primary school. Strange? Not so much, as the best part of it all is that you, too, took part to this incessant frenzy, fuelling all your will and energy into the activities proposed by the Chairs. Take some time to think. How does it feel? All right, your brain might be a bit shattered at the moment, which is perfectly normal. Even if nervousness has turned into excitement, you are still overwhelmed with chaotic thoughts and indescribable feelings. You have been asked to open up, provoke your prejudices and rethink your ideas and assumptions. You are trying to form a mental image of what you have been through, but all you get is a puzzle of names and faces, fragments of unclear images and a vague idea of what really is going on. But amidst your confusion, you are stirred by an intense impression of exhilaration. An impression that continually renews itself until the session’s rollercoaster ends. For now, only one thing is certain: by the end of the 11th Norwegian Selection Conference, you will leave with the powerful impression that you might do it all over again. Why? Because each session is a new start and brings back these thrilling first impressions you are experiencing right now.
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